Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/215

 SACRAMENTO, SHASTA, LAKE TAHOE 177 elled cliffs announce the approach to the town of Rich (2500 ft.), near which gold was "scooped by the handful." The Plumas River of the Span- iards flows through an El Dorado once gorged with treasure; over $10,000,000 worth of gold-bearing dirt was cradled in the streams of the territory adjacent to Rich Bar. Shaggy forests plunge down to the serpent track ; the scene increases in savage splendour as the road climbs to Keddie. Here gruff hills overlook meadows that reach to an unwatered plain beneath the thrusting Buttes. This is the station for In- dian Falls and the lime springs. From Marston a railway descends the valley to the county seat. Quincy is a delectable little town. Sportsmen know it for its neighbouring streams, for the grouse, deer and bear which haunt its august forests, and for its winter pastimes. An automobile road winds south from here to Downieville. There it joins the highway from Or- oville to Loyalton. Sierra County was the scene of Bret Harte's M'liss and Outcasts of Poker Flat, the latter the final test of his genius. Blairsden, on the Western Pacific, and Clio are the points of departure for the farms of Mohawk Valley, for Johnsville and its apparently inex- haustible mine, and for the creeks and lakes which give to this mountain land its chief renown. Gold Lake and Long Lake have a greater altitude than