school had stood, for not a
stick or a stone remains to mark the locus of the town--it is simply a
name upon the map.

I mention this incident as being another proof of the extraordinary hold
the Sierra foot-hill country has upon the people who were born there, as
well as upon those who have drifted there by force of circumstances. It
is forty-six or forty-seven years since my father conducted that
school, yet I felt so sure from previous experiences there would be in
Smartsville someone who remembered him, that I determined to include it
in my itinerary.

Chapter VIII

Smartsville to Marysville. Some Reflections on Automobiles and "Hoboes"

Early the next morning I started for Marysville, the last leg in my
journey, and a long twenty miles distant. I had been dreading the
pull through the Sacramento Valley, having a lively recollection of my
experience in the San Joaquin, on leaving Stockton. The day was sultry,
making the heat still more oppressive. After leaving the foot-hills for
good, I walked ten miles before reaching a tree, or anything that cast a
shadow, if you except the telephone poles. For the first time I realized
there was danger in walking in such heat, and even contemplated the
shade of the telephone poles as a possibility! Fortunately a light
breeze sprang up--the fag end of the trade wind--and, though hot, it
served to dispel that stagnation of the atmosphere which in sultry
weather is so trying to the nervous system. Marysville is nearly
one hundred miles due north of Stockton--of course, much farther by
rail--and the same arid, treeless, inhospitable belt of country between
the cultivated area and the foot-hills apparently extends the whole
distance. It is a country to avoid.

About two miles short of Marysville, while enjoying the shade cast
by the trees that border the levee of the Feather River, which skirts
Marysville to the south, a man in an auto stopped and very kindly
offered to give me a lift. I thanked him politely but declined. He
seemed amazed. "Why don't you ride when you can?" he asked. "Because I
prefer to walk," I answered. This fairly staggered him. The idea of
a man preferring to walk, and in such heat, was probably a novel
experience, and served to deprive him of further speech. He simply sat
and stared and I had passed him some twenty yards before he started his
machine.

A sturdy tramp walking in the middle of the road, who had witnessed the
scene, shouted as he p