Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/114

Rh abrupt ruts. There is no great danger to springs.

As you leave the Stanislaus the aspect of the country changes materially. It is a barer, harsher, dryer country, and houses are few and far apart. Between Knight's Ferry and Keystone (a spoonful of gas will take you through Keystone) I do not recall much that was pleasing to us that uneventful day except the continuous droning of beetles. Otherwise it was an extremely silent country. Turning to the left at Keystone (the right fork, as I remember it, being the road to Yosemite Valley via Big Oak Flat) we motored several miles up a gentle grade and about three o'clock in the afternoon we sighted Table mountain.

Table mountain by any other name would be just as popular. It is apparently a huge deposit of black malpais, flat on top. It is a fair-sized hill. I had expected quite a mountain and I was disappointed. The Ornithologist, who claimed to know all about it, declared Table mountain to have been the home of M'liss. The Journalist said M'liss lived on Red mountain and this alleged mountain was black, so the Ornithologist subsided. Subsequently we inquired for Red mountain all along the route, but never found it. In fact, by the time we had finished trailing him, we were all satisfied that Bret had trifled considerably with his geography.

We skirted around the southern base of Table mountain and at four o'clock we entered Jimtown (with apologies to the citizens of Jamestown, Tuolumne county). We had reached the land of California romance at last, but—

"Where are all those red-shirted miners with the navy revolvers and the bowie knives down their boot legs?" I demanded. We had passed a large stamp-mill below Jimtown, but the Bret Harte miner was not there. The fact is, he has perished from the earth and Jimtown knows him no more. The Italian works for less money and is moderately peaceable.

But that is about the only change that has come over Jimtown. It is a pretty little village, with one main street lined with beautiful shade trees and the old houses that the Argonauts builded years ago. A Sabbath peace brooded over it. Dogs were plentiful and friendly. The ubiquitous barefoot boy passed on his way home from school, and favored us with a shy toothless