Page:A La California.djvu/392

338 of the pisco, and on the principle of always speaking well of the person whose hospitality you are enjoying, solemnly drink the health of "San Diablo," fancying to ourselves the wink and chuckle in which the old gentleman indulged when he heard that pious prefix to his name announced. One more look all around the horizon—over at the ocean to the westward—across the great interior valley of California to the great Sierra on the eastward, where delicate coral hues are beginning to flush the snow-fields glittering in the noonday sun; southward and northward to where the earth and sky joined to shut off the vision—then loosened the cinches of our Spanish saddles, and rearranged them, to prevent their sliding forward over the horses' heads in the descent, and regretfully started down the mountain. We had gone but a few rods, when somebody gave a yell, and off went all the horses on a gallop over rocks and shelving hillsides, where to stumble was to insure a broken neck, and to fall was a joke not to be endured twice in a lifetime. As we went helter-skelter down "the hogback," I heard something fall with a dull thud, and looking up, discovered Juanita standing over me with the saddle under her neck, waiting patiently for me to recover my senses. I remounted as soon as possible, and rejoined my friends at Deer Flat, where they were waiting, not knowing what had become of me. Again we are off, and as we strike the bridle-path cut along the face of the precipice, yell after yell, and whoop á la Apache succeeds whoop á la Camanche, while the horses break into a gallop, and we turn in