, under equally strange conditions, 2000
miles away across plains and mountains.

On the Isthmus men of many nationalities combined like a vast family;
each man, from laborer to engineer, doing his stint, without favoritism
and without graft, toward the big result. So in California likewise a
people collected from practically all the world became Americans
together under the Flag, and working shoulder to shoulder--rich and
poor, old and young, educated and uneducated, no matter what their
manner of life previously--they joined forces to make California worthy
of being a State in the Union.

So hurrah for the Panama Canal, built by American methods which
encourage every man to do his share; and hurrah for California, raised
to Statehood upon the foundation of American equality!

The discovery of gold in California was hailed as an occasion for
getting rich quick; but its purpose proved to be the development of
character. It seems a long, long way back to Forty-nine, when across
the Isthmus and across the plains thousands of men--yes, and not a few
women and children--pluckily forged ahead, bound for the Land of Gold.
Some made their fortunes, but the best that any of them achieved lay in
the towns that they founded, the laws that they enacted, the homes that
they established, and the realization that these things were of more
importance than the mere frenzy for quick wealth.

In not many years the completion of the Canal will also seem a long,
long way back. We Americans will have turned to some other marvelous
accomplishment, but the Canal will continue to exist as a monument to
American energy and democracy.

So we who share in that California which our elders made, by railroad
and canal hurried so comfortably over the trails that they toilsomely
opened in years agone, have a great deal to think about and a great
deal of which to be proud.

EDWIN L. SABIN

CALIFORNIA,
June 1, 1915.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

THE STORY OF CALIFORNIA
THE PANAMA CANAL
I. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
II. HURRAH FOR THE GOLDEN WEST
III. AN UNWELCOME COMPANION
IV. A FRIEND IN NEED
V. AN ATTACK BY THE ENEMY
VI. THE LANDING AT THE ISTHMUS
VII. A RACE UP THE RIVER
VIII. A TRICK--AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
IX. TIT FOR TAT
X. ALMOST LEFT BEHIND
XI. CHARLEY LOSES OUT
XII. CALIFORNIA HO!
XIII. INTO THE GOLDEN GATE
XIV. ALL ASHORE
XV. THE SIGHT