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diff --git a/19479.txt b/19479.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..943e463 --- /dev/null +++ b/19479.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3457 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing it De Luxe, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Roughing it De Luxe + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Illustrator: John T. McCutcheon + +Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19479] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT DE LUXE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +_Roughing It De Luxe_ +_By_ +_Irvin S. Cobb_ + + + + +[Illustration: BY COMMON CONSENT WE HAD NAMED THEM CLARENCE AND +CLARICE] + + + + +_Roughing It De Luxe_ +_By_ +_Irvin S. Cobb_ + + +_Author of "Back Home,"_ +_"The Escape of Mr. Trimm," "Cobb's Anatomy,"_ +_"Cobb's Bill of Fare," etc._ + +_Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon_ + +[Illustration] + +_New York_ +_George H. Doran Company_ + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1913, +BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +TO GEORGE H. DORAN, ESQ. +MY FRIEND AND STILL MY PUBLISHER; +MY PUBLISHER AND STILL +MY FRIEND + + + + +_THE TIME TABLE_ + + PAGE +A PILGRIM CANONIZED 15 +RABID AND HIS FRIENDS 55 +HOW DO YOU LIKE THE CLIMATE? 97 +IN THE HAUNT OF THE NATIVE SON 135 +LOOKING FOR LO 175 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE +By common consent we had named them Clarence and Clarice Frontispiece +Evidently he believed the conspiracy against him was widespread 21 +There was not a turkey trotter in the bunch 35 +He'd garner in some fellows that wasn't sheep-herders 61 +Because a man has a soul is no reason he shouldn't have an appetite 73 +He was a regular moving picture cowboy and gave general satisfaction 87 +The boy who sells you a paper and the youth who blackens your shoes + both show solicitude 101 +Out from under a rock somewhere will crawl a real estate agent 115 +He felt that he was properly dressed for the time, the place and the + occasion 127 +Even the place where the turkey trot originated was trotless and quiet 143 +The woman nearest the wall has on her furs--it is always cool in the + shade 155 +It's a great thing out there to be a native son 169 +Each Navajo squaw weaves on an average nine thousand blankets a year 179 +As she leveled the lens a yell went up from somewhere 193 +As the occupants spilled sprawlingly through the gap, a front tire + exploded with a loud report 207 + + + + +_A PILGRIM CANONIZED_ + +[Illustration] + +A Pilgrim Canonized + + +IT is generally conceded that the Grand Canon of Arizona beggars +description. I shall therefore endeavor to refrain from doing so. I +realize that this is going to be a considerable contract. Nearly +everybody, on taking a first look at the Grand Canon, comes right out +and admits its wonders are absolutely indescribable--and then proceeds +to write anywhere from two thousand to fifty thousand words, giving the +full details. Speaking personally, I wish to say that I do not know +anybody who has yet succeeded in getting away with the job. + +In the old days when he was doing the literature for the Barnum show, +Tody Hamilton would have made the best nominee I can think of. Remember, +don't you, how when Tody started in to write about the elephant +quadrille you had to turn over to the next page to find the verb? And +almost any one of those young fellows who write advertising folders for +the railroads would gladly tackle the assignment; in fact, some of them +already have--but not with any tumultuous success. + +In the presence of the Grand Canon, language just simply fails you and +all the parts of speech go dead lame. When the Creator made it He failed +to make a word to cover it. To that extent the thing is incomplete. If +ever I run across a person who can put down on paper what the Grand +Canon looks like, that party will be my choice to do the story when the +Crack of Doom occurs. I can close my eyes now and see the headlines: +Judgment Day a Complete Success! Replete with Incident and Abounding in +Surprises--Many Wealthy Families Disappointed--Full Particulars from our +Special Correspondent on the Spot! + +Starting out from Chicago on the Santa Fe, we had a full trainload. We +came from everywhere: from peaceful New England towns full of elm trees +and oldline Republicans; from the Middle States; and from the land of +chewing tobacco, prominent Adam's apples and hot biscuits--down where +the r is silent, as in No'th Ca'lina. And all of us--Northerners, +Southerners, Easterners alike--were actuated by a common purpose--we +were going West to see the country and rough it--rough it on overland +trains better equipped and more luxurious than any to be found in the +East; rough it at ten-dollar-a-day hotels; rough it by touring car over +the most magnificent automobile roads to be found on this continent. We +were a daring lot and resolute; each and every one of us was brave and +blithe to endure the privations that such an expedition must inevitably +entail. Let the worst come; we were prepared! If there wasn't any of the +hothouse lamb, with imported green peas, left, we'd worry along on a +little bit of the fresh shad roe, and a few conservatory cucumbers on +the side. That's the kind of hardy adventurers we were! + +Conspicuous among us was a distinguished surgeon of Chicago; in fact, +so distinguished that he has had a very rare and expensive disease +named for him, which is as distinguished as a physician ever gets to be +in this country. Abroad he would be decorated or knighted. Here we name +something painful after him and it seems to fill the bill just as well. +This surgeon was very distinguished and also very exclusive. After you +scaled down from him, riding in solitary splendor in his drawing room, +with kitbags full of symptoms and diagnoses scattered round, we became a +mixed tourist outfit. I would not want to say that any of the persons on +our train were impossible, because that sounds snobbish; but I will say +this--some of them were highly improbable. + +There was the bride, who put on her automobile goggles and her +automobile veil as soon as we pulled out of the Chicago yards and never +took them off again--except possibly when sleeping. I presume she wanted +to show the rest of us that she was accustomed to traveling at a high +rate of speed. If the bridegroom had only bethought him to carry one of +those siren horns under his arm, and had tooted it whenever we went +around a curve, the illusion would have been complete. + +There was also the middle-aged lady with the camera habit. Any time the +train stopped, or any time it behaved as though it thought of stopping, +out on the platform would pop this lady, armed with her little +accordion-plaited camera, with the lens focused and the little atomizer +bulb dangling down, all ready to take a few pictures. She snapshotted +watertanks, whistling posts, lunch stands, section houses, grade +crossings and holes in the snowshed--also scenery, people and climate. A +two-by-four photograph of a mountain that's a mile high must be a most +splendid reminder of the beauties of Nature to take home with you from a +trip. + +There was the conversational youth in the Norfolk jacket, who was going +out West to fill an important vacancy in a large business house--he told +us so himself. It was a good selection, too. If I had a vacancy that I +wanted filled in such a way that other people would think the vacancy +was still there, this youth would have been my candidate. + +[Illustration: EVIDENTLY HE BELIEVED THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST HIM WAS +WIDESPREAD] + +And finally there was the corn-doctor from a town somewhere in Indiana, +who had the upper berth in Number Ten. It seemed to take a load off his +mind, on the second morning out, when he learned that he would not have +to spend the day up there, but could come down and mingle with the rest +of us on a common footing; but right up to the finish of the journey he +was uncertain on one or two other points. Every time a conductor came +through--Pullman conductor, train conductor or dining-car conductor--he +would hail him and ask him this question: "Do I or do I not have to +change at Williams for the Grand Canon?" The conductor--whichever +conductor it was--always said, Yes, he would have to change at Williams. +But he kept asking them--he seemed to regard a conductor as a +functionary who would deliberately go out of his way to mislead a +passenger in regard to an important matter of this kind. After a while +the conductors took to hiding out from him and then he began +cross-examining the porters, and the smoking-room attendant, and the +baggageman, and the flagmen, and the passengers who got aboard down the +line in Colorado and New Mexico. + +At breakfast in the dining car you would hear his plaintive, patient +voice lifted. "Yes, waiter," he would say; "fry 'em on both sides, +please. And say, waiter, do you know for sure whether we change at +Williams for the Grand Canon?" He put a world of entreaty into it; +evidently he believed the conspiracy against him was widespread. At +Albuquerque I saw him leading off on one side a Pueblo Indian who was +peddling bows and arrows, and heard him ask the Indian, as man to man, +if he would have to change at Williams for the Grand Canon. + +When he was not worrying about changing at Williams he showed anxiety +upon the subject of the proper clothes to be worn while looking at the +Grand Canon. Among others he asked me about it. I could not help him. I +had decided to drop in just as I was, and then to be governed by +circumstances as they might arise; but he was not organized that way. On +the morning of the last day, as we rolled up through the pine barrens of +Northern Arizona toward our destination, those of us who had risen early +became aware of a terrific struggle going on behind the shrouding +draperies of that upper berth of his. Convulsive spasms agitated the +green curtains. Muffled swear words uttered in a low but fervent tone +filtered down to us. Every few seconds a leg or an arm or a head, or the +butt-end of a suitcase, or the bulge of a valise, would show through the +curtains for a moment, only to be abruptly snatched back. + +Speculation concerning the causes of these strange manifestations +ran--as the novelists say--rife. Some thought that, overcome with +disappointment by the discovery that we had changed at Williams in the +middle of the night, without his knowing anything about it, he was +having a fit all alone up there. Presently the excitement abated; and +then, after having first lowered his baggage, our friend descended to +the aisle and the mystery was explained. He had solved the question of +what to wear while gazing at the Grand Canon. He was dressed in a new +golf suit, complete--from the dinky cap to the Scotch plaid stockings. +If ever that man visits Niagara, I should dearly love to be on hand to +see him when he comes out to view the Falls, wearing his bathing suit. + +Some of us aboard that train did not seem to care deeply for the desert; +the cactus possibly disappointed others; and the mesquit failed to give +general satisfaction, though at a conservative estimate we passed +through nine million miles of it. A few of the delegates from the +Eastern seaboard appeared to be irked by the tribal dancing of the Hopi +Indians, for there was not a turkey-trotter in the bunch, the Indian +settlements of Arizona being the only terpsichorean centers in this +country to which the Young Turk movement had not penetrated yet. Some +objected to the plains because they were so flat and plainlike, and some +to the mountains because of their exceedingly mountainous aspect; but on +one point we all agreed--on the uniform excellence of the dining-car +service. + +It is a powerfully hard thing for a man to project his personality +across the grave. In making their wills and providing for the carrying +on of their pet enterprises a number of our richest men have endeavored +from time to time to disprove this; but, to date, the percentage of +successes has not been large. So far as most of us are concerned the +burden of proof shows that in this regard we are one with the famous +little dog whose name was Rover--when we die, we die all over. Every big +success represents the personality of a living man; rarely ever does it +represent the personality of a dead man. + +The original Fred Harvey is dead--has been dead, in fact, for several +years; but his spirit goes marching on across the southwestern half of +this country. Two thousand miles from salt water, the oysters that are +served on his dining cars do not seem to be suffering from car-sickness. +And you can get a beefsteak measuring eighteen inches from tip to tip. +There are spring chickens with the most magnificent bust development I +ever saw outside of a burlesque show; and the eggs taste as though they +might have originated with a hen instead of a cold-storage vault. If +there was only a cabaret show going up and down the middle of the car +during meals, even the New York passengers would be satisfied with the +service, I think. + +There is another detail of the Harvey system that makes you wonder. Out +on the desert, in a dead-gray expanse of silence and sagebrush, your +train halts at a junction point that you never even heard of before. +There is not much to be seen--a depot, a 'dobe cabin or so, a few frame +shacks, a few natives, a few Indians and a few incurably languid +Mexicans--and that is positively all there is except that, right out +there in the middle of nowhere, stands a hotel big enough and handsome +enough for Chicago or New York, built in the Spanish style, with wide +patios and pergolas--where a hundred persons might perg at one time--and +gay-striped awnings. It is flanked by flower-beds and refreshingly +green strips of lawn, with spouting fountains scattered about. + +You go inside to a big, spotlessly bright dining room and get as good a +meal as you can get anywhere on earth--and served in as good style, too. +To the man fresh from the East, such an establishment reminds him +vividly of the hurry-up railroad lunch places to which he has been +accustomed back home--places where the doughnuts are dornicks and the +pickles are fossils, and the hard-boiled egg got up out of a sick bed to +be there, and on the pallid yellow surface of the official pie a couple +of hundred flies are enacting Custard's Last Stand. It reminds him of +them because it is so different. Between Kansas City and the Coast there +are a dozen or more of these hotels scattered along the line. + +And so, with real food to stay you and one of Tuskegee's bright, +straw-colored graduates to minister to your wants in the sleeper, you +come on the morning of the third day to the Grand Canon in northern +Arizona; you take one look--and instantly you lose all your former +standards of comparison. You stand there gazing down the raw, red gullet +of that great gosh-awful gorge, and you feel your self-importance +shriveling up to nothing inside of you. You haven't an adjective left to +your back. It makes you realize what the sensations would be of one +little microbe lost inside of Barnum's fat lady. + +I think my preconceived conception of the Canon was the same conception +most people have before they come to see it for themselves--a straight +up-and-down slit in the earth, fabulously steep and fabulously deep; +nevertheless merely a slit. It is no such thing. + +Imagine, if you can, a monster of a hollow approximately some hundreds +of miles long and a mile deep, and anywhere from ten to sixteen miles +wide, with a mountain range--the most wonderful mountain range in the +world--planted in it; so that, viewing the spectacle from above, you get +the illusion of being in a stationary airship, anchored up among the +clouds; imagine these mountain peaks--hundreds upon hundreds of +them--rising one behind the other, stretching away in endless, serried +rank until the eye swims and the mind staggers at the task of trying to +count them; imagine them splashed and splattered over with all the +earthly colors you ever saw and a lot of unearthly colors you never saw +before; imagine them carved and fretted and scrolled into all +shapes--tabernacles, pyramids, battleships, obelisks, Moorish +palaces--the Moorish suggestion is especially pronounced both in +colorings and in shapes--monuments, minarets, temples, turrets, castles, +spires, domes, tents, tepees, wigwams, shafts. + +Imagine other ravines opening from the main one, all nuzzling their +mouths in her flanks like so many sucking pigs; for there are hundreds +of these lesser canyons, and any one of them would be a marvel were they +not dwarfed into relative puniness by the mother of the litter. Imagine +walls that rise sheer and awful as the Wrath of God, and at their base +holes where you might hide all the Seven Wonders of the Olden World and +never know they were there--or miss them either. Imagine a trail that +winds like a snake and climbs like a goat and soars like a bird, and +finally bores like a worm and is gone. + +Imagine a great cloud-shadow cruising along from point to point, growing +smaller and smaller still, until it seems no more than a shifting purple +bruise upon the cheek of a mountain, and then, as you watch it, losing +itself in a tiny rift which at that distance looks like a wrinkle in the +seamed face of an old squaw, but which is probably a huge gash gored +into the solid rock for a thousand feet of depth and more than a +thousand feet of width. + +Imagine, way down there at the bottom, a stream visible only at certain +favored points because of the mighty intervening ribs and chines of +rock--a stream that appears to you as a torpidly crawling yellow worm, +its wrinkling back spangled with tarnished white specks, but which is +really a wide, deep, brawling, rushing river--the Colorado--full of +torrents and rapids; and those white specks you see are the tops of +enormous rocks in its bed. + +Imagine--if it be winter--snowdrifts above, with desert flowers blooming +alongside the drifts, and down below great stretches of green verdure; +imagine two or three separate snowstorms visibly raging at different +points, with clear, bright stretches of distance intervening between +them, and nearer maybe a splendid rainbow arching downward into the +great void; for these meteorological three-ring circuses are not +uncommon at certain seasons. + +Imagine all this spread out beneath the unflawed turquoise of the +Arizona sky and washed in the liquid gold of the Arizona sunshine--and +if you imagine hard enough and keep it up long enough you may begin, in +the course of eight or ten years, to have a faint, a very faint and +shadowy conception of this spot where the shamed scheme of creation is +turned upside down and the very womb of the world is laid bare before +our impious eyes. Then go to Arizona and see it all for yourself, and +you will realize what an entirely inadequate and deficient thing the +human imagination is. + +It is customary for the newly arrived visitor to take a ride along the +edge of the canyon--the rim-drive, it is called--with stops at Hopi Point +and Mohave Point and Pima Point, and other points where the views are +supposed to be particularly good. To do this you get into a smart coach +drawn by horses and driven by a competent young man in a khaki uniform. +Leaving behind you a clutter of hotel buildings and station buildings, +bungalows and tents, you go winding away through a Government forest +reserve containing much fine standing timber and plenty more that is not +so fine, it being mainly stunted pinon and gnarly desert growths. + +Presently the road, which is a fine, wide, macadamized road, skirts out +of the trees and threads along the canyon until it comes to a rocky +flange that juts far over. You climb out there and, instinctively +treading lightly on your tiptoes and breathing in syncopated breaths, +you steal across the ledge, going slowly and carefully until you pause +finally upon the very eyelashes of eternity and look down into that +great inverted muffin-mold of a canyon. + +You are at the absolute jumping-off place. There is nothing between you +and the undertaker except six-thousand feet, more or less, of dazzling +Arizona climate. Below you, beyond you, stretching both ways from you, +lie those buried mountains, the eternal herds of the Lord's cattlefold; +there are scars upon their sides, like the marks of a mighty branding +iron, and in the distance, viewed through the vapor-waves of melting +snow, their sides seem to heave up and down like the flanks of panting +cattle. Half a mile under you, straight as a man can spit, are gardens +of willows and grasses and flowers, looking like tiny green patches, and +the tents of a camp looking like scattered playing cards; and there is a +plateau down there that appears to be as flat as your hand and is +seemingly no larger, but actually is of a size sufficient for the +evolutions of a brigade of cavalry. + +[Illustration: THERE WAS NOT A TURKEY TROTTER IN THE BUNCH] + +When you have had your fill of this the guide takes you and leads +you--you still stepping lightly to avoid starting anything--to a spot +from which he points out to you, riven into the face of a vast +perpendicular chasm above a cave like a monstrous door, a tremendous +and perfect figure seven--the house number of the Almighty Himself. By +this I mean no irreverence. If ever Jehovah chose an earthly +abiding-place, surely this place of awful, unutterable majesty would be +it. You move a few yards farther along and instantly the seven is +gone--the shift of shadow upon the rock wall has wiped it out and +obliterated it--but you do not mourn the loss, because there are still +upward of a million things for you to look at. + +And then, if you have timed wisely the hour of your coming, the sun +pretty soon goes down; and as it sinks lower and lower out of titanic +crannies come the thickening shades, making new plays and tricks of +painted colors upon the walls--purples and reds and golds and blues, +ambers and umbers and opals and ochres, yellows and tans and tawnys and +browns--and the canyon fills to its very brim with the silence of +oncoming night. + +You stand there, stricken dumb, your whole being dwarfed yet +transfigured; and in the glory of that moment you can even forget the +gabble of the lady tourist alongside of you who, after searching her +soul for the right words, comes right out and gives the Grand Canon her +cordial indorsement. She pronounces it to be just perfectly lovely! But +I said at the outset I was not going to undertake to describe the Grand +Canon--and I'm not. These few remarks were practically jolted out of me +and should not be made to count in the total score. + +Having seen the canyon--or a little bit of it--from the top, the next +thing to do is to go down into it and view it from the sides and the +bottom. Most of the visitors follow the Bright Angel Trail which is +handily near by and has an assuring name. There are only two ways to do +the inside of the Grand Canon--afoot and on mule-back. El Tovar hotel +provides the necessary regalia, if you have not come prepared--divided +skirts for the women and leggings for the men, a mule apiece and a guide +to every party of six or eight. + +At the start there is always a lot of nervous chatter--airy persiflage +flies to and fro and much laughing is indulged in. But it has a forced, +strained sound, that laughter has; it does not come from the heart, the +heart being otherwise engaged for the moment. Down a winding footpath +moves the procession, with the guide in front, and behind him in single +file his string of pilgrims--all as nervous as cats and some holding to +their saddle-pommels with death-grips. Just under the first terrace a +halt is made while the official photographer takes a picture; and when +you get back he has your finished copy ready for you, so you can see for +yourself just how pale and haggard and wall-eyed and how much like a +typhoid patient you looked. + +The parade moves on. All at once you notice that the person immediately +ahead of you has apparently ridden right over the wall of the canyon. A +moment ago his arched back loomed before you; now he is utterly gone. It +is at this point that some tourists tender their resignations--to take +effect immediately. To the credit of the sex, be it said, the +statistics show that fewer women quit here than men. But nearly always +there is some man who remembers where he left his umbrella or something, +and he goes back after it and forgets to return. + +In our crowd there was one person who left us here. He was a circular +person; about forty per cent of him, I should say, rhymed with jelly. He +climbed right down off his mule. He said: + +"I'm not scared myself, you understand, but I've just recalled that my +wife is a nervous woman. She'd have a fit if she knew I was taking this +trip! I love my wife, and for her sake I will not go down this canyon, +dearly as I would love to." And with that he headed for the hotel. I +wanted to go with him. I wanted to go along with him and comfort him and +help him have his chill, and if necessary send a telegram for him to his +wife--she was in Pittsburgh--telling her that all was well. But I did +not. I kept on. I have been trying to figure out ever since whether this +showed courage on my part, or cowardice. + +Over the ridge and down the steep declivity beyond goes your mule, +slipping a little. He is reared back until his rump almost brushes the +trail; he grunts mild protests at every lurching step and grips his +shoecalks into the half-frozen path. You reflect that thousands of +persons have already done this thing; that thousands of others--men, +women and children--are going to do it, and that no serious accident has +yet occurred--which is some comfort, but not much. The thought comes to +you that, after all, it is a very bright and beautiful world you are +leaving behind. You turn your head to give it a long, lingering +farewell, and you try to put your mind on something cheerful--such as +your life insurance. Then something happens. + +The trail, that has been slanting at a downward angle which is a trifle +steeper than a ship's ladder, but not quite so steep perhaps as a board +fence, takes an abrupt turn to the right. You duck your head and go +through a little tunnel in the rock, patterned on the same general +design of the needle's eye that is going to give so many of our +prominent captains of industry trouble in the hereafter. And as you +emerge on the lower side you forget all about your life-insurance papers +and freeze to your pommel with both hands, and cram your poor cold feet +into the stirrups--even in warm weather they'll be good and cold--and +all your vital organs come up in your throat, where you can taste them. +If anybody had shot me through the middle just about then he would have +inflicted only a flesh wound. + +You have come out on a place where the trail clings to the sheer side of +the dizziest, deepest chasm in the known world. One of your legs is +scraping against the everlasting granite; the other is dangling over +half a mile of fresh mountain air. The mule's off hind hoof grates and +grinds on the flinty trail, dislodging a fair-sized stone that flops +over the verge. You try to look down and see where it is going and find +you haven't the nerve to do it--but you can hear it falling from one +narrow ledge to another, picking up other boulders as it goes until +there must be a fair-sized little avalanche of them cascading down. The +sound of their roaring, racketing passage grows fainter and fainter, +then dies almost out, and then there rises up to you from those +unutterable depths a dull, thuddy little sound--those stones have +reached the cellar! Then to you there comes the pleasing reflection that +if your mule slipped and you fell off and were dashed to fragments, they +would not be large, mussy, irregular fragments, but little teeny-weeny +fragments, such as would not bring the blush of modesty to the cheek of +the most fastidious. + +Only your mule never slips off! It is contrary to a mule's religion and +politics, and all his traditions and precedents, to slip off. He may +slide a little and stumble once in a while, and he may, with malice +aforethought, try to scrape you off against the outjutting shoulders of +the trail; but he positively will not slip off. It is not because he is +interested in you. A tourist on the canyon's rim a simple tourist is to +him and nothing more; but he has no intention of getting himself hurt. +Instinct has taught that mule it would be to him a highly painful +experience to fall a couple of thousand feet or so and light on a pile +of rocks; and therefore, through motives that are purely selfish, he +studiously refrains from so doing. When the Prophet of old wrote, "How +beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him," and so on, I judge he +had reference to a mule on a narrow trail. + +My mule had one very disconcerting way about him--or, rather, about her, +for she was of the gentler sex. When she came to a particularly scary +spot, which was every minute or so, she would stop dead still. I +concurred in that part of it heartily. But then she would face outward +and crane her neck over the fathomless void of that bottomless pit, and +for a space of moments would gaze steadily downward, with a despondent +droop of her fiddle-shaped head and a suicidal gleam in her mournful +eyes. It worried me no little; and if I had known, at the time, that she +had a German name it would have worried me even more, I guess. But +either the time was not ripe for the rash act or else she abhorred the +thought of being found dead in the company of a mere tourist, so she did +not leap off into space, but restrained herself; and I was very grateful +to her for it. It made a bond of sympathy between us. + +On you go, winding on down past the red limestone and the yellow +limestone and the blue sandstone, which is green generally; past huge +bat caves and the big nests of pack-rats, tucked under shelves of +Nature's making; past stratified millions of crumbling seashells that +tell to geologists the tale of the salt-water ocean that once on a time, +when the world was young and callow, filled this hole brim full; and +presently, when you have begun to piece together the tattered fringes of +your nerves, you realize that the canyon is even more wonderful when +viewed from within than it is when viewed from without. Also, you begin +to notice now that it is most extensively autographed. + +Apparently about every other person who came this way remarked to +himself that this canyon was practically completed and only needed his +signature as collaborator to round it out--so he signed it and after +that it was a finished job. Some of them brought down colored chalk and +stencils, and marking pots, and paints and brushes, and cold chisels to +work with, which must have been a lot of trouble, but was worth it--it +does add so greatly to the beauty of the Grand Canon to find it spangled +over with such names as you could hear paged in almost any dollar-a-day +American-plan hotel. The guide pointed out a spot where one of these +inspired authors climbed high up the face of a white cliff and, clinging +there, carved out in letters a foot long his name; and it was one of +those names that, inscribed upon a register, would instinctively cause +any room clerk to reach for the key to an inside one, without bath. I +regret to state that nothing happened to this person. He got down safe +and sound; it was a great pity, too. + +By the Bright Angel Trail it is three hours on a mule to the plateau, +where there are green summery things growing even in midwinter, and +where the temperature is almost sultry; and it is an hour or so more to +the riverbed, down at the very bottom. When you finally arrive there and +look up you do not see how you ever got down, for the trail has +magically disappeared; and you feel morally sure you are never going to +get back. If your mule were not under you pensively craning his head +rearward in an effort to bite your leg off, you would almost be ready to +swear the whole thing was an optical illusion, a wondrous dream. Under +these circumstances it is not so strange that some travelers who have +been game enough until now suddenly weaken. Their nerves capsize and the +grit runs out of them like sand out of an overturned pail. + +All over this part of Arizona they tell you the story of the lady from +the southern part of the state--she was a school teacher and the story +has become an epic--who went down Bright Angel one morning and did not +get back until two o'clock the following morning; and then she came +against her will in a litter borne by two tired guides, while two +others walked beside her and held her hands; and she was protesting at +every step that she positively could not and would not go another inch; +and she was as hysterical as a treeful of chickadees; her hat was lost, +and her glasses were gone, and her hair hung down her back, and +altogether she was a mournful sight to see. + +Likewise the natives will tell you the tale of a man who made the trip +by crawling round the more sensational corners upon his hands and knees; +and when he got down he took one look up to where, a sheer mile above +him, the rim of the canyon showed, with the tall pine trees along its +edge looking like the hairs upon a caterpillar's back, and he announced +firmly that he wished he might choke if he stirred another step. Through +the miraculous indulgence of a merciful providence he was down, and that +was sufficient for him; he wasn't going to trifle with his luck. He +would stay down until he felt good and rested, and then he would return +to his home in dear old Altoona by some other route. He was very +positive about it. There were two guides along, both of them patient and +forbearing cowpunchers, and they argued with him. They pointed that +there was only one suitable way for him to get out of the canyon, and +that was the way by which he had got into it. + +"The trouble with you fellows," said the man, "is that you are too +dad-blamed technical. The point is that I'm here, and here I'm going to +stay." + +"But," they told him, "you can't stay here. You'd starve to death like +that poor devil that some prospectors found in that gulch yonder--turned +to dusty bones, with a pack rat's nest in his chest and a rock under his +head. You'd just naturally starve to death." + +"There you go again," he said, "importing these trivial foreign matters +into the discussion. Let us confine ourselves to the main issue, which +is that I am not going back. This rock shall fly from its firm base as +soon as I," he said, or words to that effect. + +So insisting, he sat down, putting his own firm base against the said +rock, and prepared to become a permanent resident. He was a grown man +and the guides were less gentle with him than they had been with the +lady school teacher. They roped his arms at the elbows and hoisted him +upon a mule and tied his legs together under the mule's belly, and they +brought him out of there like a sack of bran--only he made more noise +than any sack of bran has ever been known to make. + +Coming back up out of the Grand Canon is an even more inspiring and +amazing performance than going down. But by now--anyhow this was my +experience, and they tell me it is the common experience--you are +beginning to get used to the sensation of skirting along the raw and +ragged verge of nothing. Narrow turns where, going down, your hair +pushed your hat off, no longer affright you; you take them +jauntily--almost debonairly. You feel that you are now an old +mountain-scaler, and your soul begins to crave for a trip with a few +more thrills to the square inch in it. You get your wish. You go down +Hermit Trail, which its middle name is thrills; and there you make the +acquaintance of the Hydrophobic Skunk. + +The Hydrophobic Skunk is a creature of such surpassing accomplishments +and vivid personality that I feel he is entitled to a new chapter. The +Hydrophobic Skunk will be continued in our next. + + + + +_RABID AND HIS FRIENDS_ + +[Illustration] + +_Rabid and His Friends_ + + +THE Hydrophobic Skunk resides at the extreme bottom of the Grand Canon +and, next to a Southern Republican who never asked for a Federal office, +is the rarest of living creatures. He is so rare that nobody ever saw +him--that is, nobody except a native. I met plenty of tourists who had +seen people who had seen him, but never a tourist who had seen him with +his own eyes. In addition to being rare, he is highly gifted. + +I think almost anybody will agree with me that the common, ordinary +skunk has been most richly dowered by Nature. To adorn a skunk with any +extra qualifications seems as great a waste of the raw material as +painting the lily or gilding refined gold. He is already amply equipped +for outdoor pursuits. Nobody intentionally shoves him round; everybody +gives him as much room as he seems to need. He commands respect--nay, +more than that, respect and veneration--wherever he goes. Joy-riders +never run him down and foot passengers avoid crowding him into a corner. +You would think Nature had done amply well by the skunk; but no--the +Hydrophobic Skunk comes along and upsets all these calculations. Besides +carrying the traveling credentials of an ordinary skunk, he is rabid in +the most rabidissimus form. He is not mad just part of the time, like +one's relatives by marriage--and not mad most of the time, like the +old-fashioned railroad ticket agent--but mad all the time--incurably, +enthusiastically and unanimously mad! He is mad and he is glad of it. + +We made the acquaintance of the Hydrophobic Skunk when we rode down +Hermit Trail. The casual visitor to the Grand Canon first of all takes +the rim drive; then he essays Bright Angel Trail, which is sufficiently +scary for his purposes until he gets used to it; and after that he grows +more adventurous and tackles Hermit Trail, which is a marvel of +corkscrew convolutions, gimleting its way down this red abdominal wound +of a canyon to the very gizzard of the world. + +Alongside the Hermit, traveling the Bright Angel is the same as +gathering the myrtles with Mary; but the civil engineers who worked out +the scheme of the Hermit and made it wide and navigable for ordinary +folks were bright young men. They laid a wall along its outer side all +the way from the top to the bottom. Now this wall is made of loose +stones racked up together without cement, and it is nowhere more than a +foot or a foot and a half high. If your mule ever slipped--which he +never does--or if you rolled off on your own hook--which has not +happened to date--that puny little wall would hardly stop you--might not +even cause you to hesitate. But some way, intervening between you and a +thousand feet or so of uninterrupted fresh air, it gives a tremendous +sense of security. Life is largely a state of mind, anyhow, I reckon. + +As a necessary preliminary to going down Hermit Trail you take a +buckboard ride of ten miles--ten wonderful miles! Almost immediately the +road quits the rocky, bare parapet of the gorge and winds off through +the noble, big forest that is a part of the Government reserve. Jays +that are twice as large and three times as vocal as the Eastern variety +weave blue threads in the green background of the pines; and if there is +snow upon the ground its billowy white surface is crossed and +criss-crossed with the dainty tracks of coyotes, and sometimes with the +broad, furry marks of the wildcat's pads. The air is a blessing and the +sunshine is a benediction. + +Away off yonder, through a break in the conifers, you see one lone and +lofty peak with a cap of snow upon its top. The snow fills the deeper +ravines that furrow its side downward from the summit so that at this +distance it looks as though it were clutched in a vast white owl's claw; +and generally there is a wispy cloud caught on it like a white shirt on +a poor man's Monday washpole. Or, huddled together in a nest formation +like so many speckled eggs, you see the clutch of little mottled +mountains for which nobody seems to have a name. If these mountains were +in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott and Bobby Burns would have written about +them and they would be world-famous, and tourists from America would +come and climb their slopes, and stand upon their tops, and sop up +romance through all their pores. But being in Arizona, dwarfed by the +heaven-reaching ranges and groups that wall them in north, south and +west, they have not even a Christian name to answer to. + +Anon--that is to say, at the end of those ten miles--you come to the +head of Hermit Trail. There you leave your buckboard at a way station +and mount your mule. Presently you are crawling downward, like a fly on +a board fence, into the depths of the chasm. You pass through rapidly +succeeding graduations of geology, verdure, scenery and temperature. You +ride past little sunken gardens full of wild flowers and stunty fir +trees, like bits of Old Japan; you climb naked red slopes crowned with +the tall cactus, like Old Mexico; you skirt bald, bare, blistered +vistas of desolation, like Old Perdition. You cross Horsethief's Trail, +which was first traced out by the moccasined feet of marauding Apaches +and later was used by white outlaws fleeing northward with their stolen +pony herds. + +You pass above the gloomy shadows of Blythe's Abyss and wind beneath a +great box-shaped formation of red sandstone set on a spindle rock and +balancing there in dizzy space like Mohammed's coffin; and then, at the +end of a mile-long jog along a natural terrace stretching itself midway +between Heaven and the other place, you come to the residence of Shorty, +the official hermit of the Grand Canon. + +[Illustration: HE'D GARNER IN SOME FELLOWS THAT WASN'T SHEEPHERDERS] + +Shorty is a little, gentle old man, with warped legs and mild blue eyes +and a set of whiskers of such indeterminate aspect that you cannot tell +at first look whether they are just coming out or just going back in. He +belongs--or did belong--to the vast vanishing race of old-time gold +prospectors. Halfway down the trail he does light housekeeping under an +accommodating flat ledge that pouts out over the pathway like a +snuffdipper's under lip. He has a hole in the rock for his chimney, a +breadth of weathered gray canvas for his door and an eighty-mile stretch +of the most marvelous panorama on earth for his front yard. He minds the +trail and watches out for the big boulders that sometimes fall in the +night; and, except in the tourist season, he leads a reasonably quiet +existence. + +Alongside of Shorty, Robinson Crusoe was a tenement-dweller, and Jonah, +weekending in the whale, had a perfectly uproarious time; but Shorty +thrives on a solitude that is too vast for imagining. He would not trade +jobs with the most potted potentate alive--only sometimes in mid-summer +he feels the need of a change stealing over him, and then he goes afoot +out into the middle of Death Valley and spends a happy vacation of five +or six weeks with the Gila monsters and the heat. He takes Toby with +him. + +Toby is a gentlemanly little woolly dog built close to the earth like a +carpet sweeper, with legs patterned crookedly--after the model of his +master's. Toby has one settled prejudice: he dislikes Indians. You have +only to whisper the word "Injun" and instantly Toby is off, scuttling +away to the highest point that is handy. From there he peers all round +looking for red invaders. Not finding any he comes slowly back, crushed +to the earth with disappointment. Nobody has ever been able to decide +what Toby would do with the Indians if he found them; but he and Shorty +are in perfect accord. They have been associated together ever since +Toby was a pup and Shorty went into the hermit business, and that was +ten years ago. Sitting cross-legged on a flat rock like a little gnome, +with his puckered eyes squinting off at space, Shorty told us how once +upon a time he came near losing Toby. + +"Me and Toby," he said, "was over to Flagstaff, and that was several +years ago. There was a saloon man over there owned a bulldog and he +wanted that his bulldog and Toby should fight. Toby can lick mighty nigh +any dog alive; but I didn't want that Toby should fight. But this here +saloon man wouldn't listen. He sicked his bulldog on to Toby and in +about a minute Toby was taking that bulldog all apart. + +"This here saloon man he got mad then--he got awful mad. He wanted to +kill Toby and he pulled out his pistol. I begged him mighty hard please +not to shoot Toby--I did so! I stood in front of Toby to protect him and +I begged that man not to do it. Then some other fellows made him put up +his gun, and me and Toby came on away from there." His voice trailed +off. "I certainly would 'a' hated to lose Toby. We set a heap of store +by one another--don't we, dog?" And Toby testified that it was +so--testified with wriggling body and licking tongue and dancing eyes +and a madly wagging stump tail. + +As we mounted and jogged away we looked back, and the pair of +them--Shorty and Toby--were sitting there side by side in perfect +harmony and perfect content; and I could not help wondering, in a +country where we sometimes hang a man for killing a man, what would +have been adequate punishment for a brute who would kill Toby and leave +Shorty without his partner! In another minute, though, we had rounded a +jagged sandstone shoulder and they were out of sight. + +About that time Johnny, our guide, felt moved to speech, and we +hearkened to his words and hungered for more, for Johnny knows the +ranges of the Northwest as a city dweller knows his own little side +street. In the fall of the year Johnny comes down to the Canon and +serves as a guide a while; and then, when he gets so he just can't stand +associating with tourists any longer, he packs his warbags and journeys +back to the Northern Range and enjoys the company of cows a spell. Cows +are not exactly exciting, but they don't ask fool questions. + +A highly competent young person is Johnny and a cowpuncher of parts. +Most of the Canon guides are cowpunchers--accomplished ones, too, and of +high standing in the profession. With a touch of reverence Johnny +pointed out to us Sam Scovel, the greatest bronco buster of his time, +now engaged in piloting tourists. + +"Can he ride?" echoed Johnny in answer to our question. "Scovel could +ride an earthquake if she stood still long enough for him to mount! He +rode Steamboat--not Young Steamboat, but Old Steamboat! He rode Rocking +Chair, and he's the only man that ever did do that and not be called on +in a couple of days to attend his own funeral." + +This day he told us about one Tom, who lived up in Wyoming, where Johnny +came from. It appeared that in an easier day Tom was hired by some +cattle men to thin out the sheep herders who insisted upon invading the +public ranges. By Johnny's account Tom did the thinning with +conscientious attention to detail and gave general satisfaction for a +while; but eventually he grew careless in his methods and took to +killing parties who were under the protection of the game laws. Likewise +his own private collection of yearlings began to increase with a +rapidity which was only to be accounted for on the theory that a large +number of calves were coming into the world with Tom's brand for a +birthmark. So he lost popularity. Several times his funeral was privily +arranged, but on each occasion was postponed owing to the failure of the +corpse to be present. Finally he killed a young boy and was caught and +convicted, and one morning they took him out and hanged him rather +extensively. + +"Tom was mighty methodical," said Johnny. "He got five hundred a head +for killing sheep herders--that was the regular tariff. Every time he +bumped one off he'd put a stone under his head, which was his private +mark--a kind of a duebill, as you might say. And when they'd find that +dead herder with the rock under his head they'd know there was another +five hundred comin' to Tom on the books; they always paid it, too. Once +in a while, though, he'd cut loose in a saloon and garner in some +fellows that wasn't sheep herders. There was quite a number that thought +Tom acted kind of ungentlemanly when he was drinkin'." + +We went on and on at a lazy mule-trot, hearing the unwritten annals of +the range from one who had seen them enacted at first hand. Pretty soon +we passed a herd of burros with mealy, dusty noses and spotty hides, +feeding on prickly pears and rock lichens; and just before sunset we +slid down the last declivity out upon the plateau and came to a camp as +was a camp! + +This was roughing it de luxe with a most de-luxey vengeance! Here were +three tents, or rather three canvas houses, with wooden half-walls; and +they were spick-and-span inside and out, and had glass windows in them +and doors and matched wooden floors. The one that was a bedroom had gay +Navajo blankets on the floor, and a stove in it, and a little bureau, +and a washstand with white towels and good lathery soap. And there were +two beds--not cots or bunks, but regular beds--with wire springs and +mattresses and white sheets and pillowslips. They were not veteran +sheets and vintage pillowslips either, but clean and spotless ones. The +mess tent was provided with a table with a clean cloth to go over it, +and there were china dishes and china cups and shiny knives, forks and +spoons. Every scrap of this equipment had been brought down from the top +on burro packs. The Grand Canon is scenically artistic, but it is a +non-producing district. And outside there was a corral for the mules; a +canvas storehouse; hitching stakes for the burros; a Dutch oven, and a +little forge where the guides sometimes shoe a mule. They aren't +blacksmiths; they merely have to be. Bill was in charge of the camp--a +dark, rangy, good-looking young leading man of a cowboy, wearing his +blue shirt and his red neckerchief with an air. He spoke with the soft +Texas drawl and in his way was as competent as Johnny. + +The sun, which had been winking farewells to us over the rim above, +dropped out of sight as suddenly as though it had fallen into a well. +From the bottom the shadows went slanting along the glooming walls of +the gorges, swallowing up the yellow patches of sunlight that still +lingered near the top like blacksnakes swallowing eggs. Every second the +colors shifted and changed; what had been blue a moment before was now +purple and in another minute would be a velvety black. A little lost +ghost of an echo stole out of a hole and went straying up and down, +feebly mocking our remarks and making them sound cheap and tawdry. + +Then the new moon showed as a silver fish, balancing on its tail and +arching itself like a hooked skipjack. In a purpling sky the stars +popped out like pinpricks and the peace that passes all understanding +came over us. I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to say that, +in my opinion, David Belasco has never done anything in the way of +scenic effects to beat a moonrise in the Grand Canon. + +I reckon we might have been there until now--my companion and I--soaking +our souls in the unutterable beauty of that place, only just about that +time we smelled something frying. There was also a most delectable +sputtering sound as of fat meat turning over on a hot skillet; but just +the smell alone was a square meal for a poor family. The meeting +adjourned by acclamation. Just because a man has a soul is no reason he +shouldn't have an appetite. + +That Johnny certainly could cook! Served on china dishes upon a +cloth-covered table, we had mounds of fried steaks and shoals of fried +bacon; and a bushel, more or less, of sheepherder potatoes; and green +peas and sliced peaches out of cans; and sourdough biscuits as light as +kisses and much more filling; and fresh butter and fresh milk; and +coffee as black as your hat and strong as sin. How easy it is for +civilized man to become primitive and comfortable in his way of eating, +especially if he has just ridden ten miles on a buckboard and nine more +on a mule and is away down at the bottom of the Grand Canon--and there +is nobody to look on disapprovingly when he takes a bite that would be a +credit to a steam shovel! + +[Illustration: BECAUSE A MAN HAS A SOUL IS NO REASON HE SHOULDN'T HAVE +AN APPETITE] + +Despite all reports to the contrary, I wish to state that it is no +trouble at all to eat green peas off a knifeblade--you merely mix them +in with potatoes for a cement; and fried steak--take it from an old +steak-eater--tastes best when eaten with those tools of Nature's own +providing, both hands and your teeth. An hour passed--busy, yet +pleasant--and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with +our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when +Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away +biscuits inside of himself like a parlor prestidigitator, said: + +"Seen any of them old hydrophobies the last day or two?" + +"Not so many," said Bill casually. "There was a couple out last night +pirootin' round in the moonlight. I reckon, though, there'll be quite a +flock of 'em out tonight. A new moon always seems to fetch 'em up from +the river." + +Both of us quit blowing on our coffee and we put the cups down. I think +I was the one who spoke. + +"I beg your pardon," I asked, "but what did you say would be out +tonight?" + +"We were just speakin' to one another about them Hydrophoby Skunks," +said Bill apologetically. "This here Canon is where they mostly hang out +and frolic 'round." + +I laid down my cigar, too. I admit I was interested. + +"Oh!" I said softly--like that. "Is it? Do they?" + +"Yes," said Johnny. "I reckin there's liable to be one come shovin' his +old nose into that door any minute. Or probably two--they mostly travels +in pairs--sets, as you might say." + +"You'd know one the minute you saw him, though," said Bill. "They're +smaller than a regular skunk and spotted where the other kind is +striped. And they got little red eyes. You won't have no trouble at all +recognizin' one." + +It was at this juncture that we both got up and moved back by the stove. +It was warmer there and the chill of evening seemed to be settling down +noticeably. + +"Funny thing about Hydrophoby Skunks," went on Johnny after a moment of +pensive thought--"mad, you know!" + +"What makes them mad?" The two of us asked the question together. + +"Born that way!" explained Bill--"mad from the start, and won't never do +nothin' to get shut of it." + +"Ahem--they never attack humans, I suppose?" + +"Don't they?" said Johnny, as if surprised at such ignorance. "Why, +humans is their favorite pastime! Humans is just pie to a Hydrophoby +Skunk. It ain't really any fun to be bit by a Hydrophoby Skunk neither." +He raised his coffee cup to his lips and imbibed deeply. + +"Which you certainly said something then, Johnny," stated Bill. "You +see," he went on, turning to us, "they aim to catch you asleep and they +creep up right soft and take holt of you--take holt of a year +usually--and clamp their teeth and just hang on for further orders. Some +says they hang on till it thunders, same as snappin' turtles. But that's +a lie, I judge, because there's weeks on a stretch down here when it +don't thunder. All the cases I ever heard of they let go at sun-up." + +"It is right painful at the time," said Johnny, taking up the thread of +the narrative; "and then in nine days you go mad yourself. Remember that +fellow the Hydrophoby Skunk bit down here by the rapids, Bill? Let's +see now--what was that hombre's name?" + +"Williams," supplied Bill--"Heck Williams. I saw him at Flagstaff when +they took him there to the hospital. That guy certainly did carry on +regardless. First he went mad and his eyes turned red, and he got so he +didn't have no real use for water--well, them prospectors don't never +care much about water anyway--and then he got to snappin' and bitin' and +foamin' so's they had to strap him down to his bed. He got loose +though." + +"Broke loose, I suppose?" I said. + +"No, he bit loose," said Bill with the air of one who would not deceive +you even in a matter of small details. + +"Do you mean to say he bit those leather straps in two?" + +"No, sir; he couldn't reach them," explained Bill, "so he bit the bed in +two. Not in one bite, of course," he went on. "It took him several. I +saw him after he was laid out. He really wasn't no credit to himself as +a corpse." + +I'm not sure, but I think my companion and I were holding hands by now. +Outside we could hear that little lost echo laughing to itself. It was +no time to be laughing either. Under certain circumstances I don't know +of a lonelier place anywhere on earth than that Grand Canon. + +Presently my friend spoke, and it seemed to me his voice was a mite +husky. Well, he had a bad cold. + +"You said they mostly attack persons who are sleeping out, didn't you?" + +"That's right, too," said Johnny, and Bill nodded in affirmation. + +"Then, of course, since we sleep indoors everything will be all right," +I put in. + +"Well, yes and no," answered Johnny. "In the early part of the evening a +hydrophoby is liable to do a lot of prowlin' round outdoors; but toward +mornin' they like to get into camps--they dig up under the side walls or +come up through the floor--and they seem to prefer to get in bed with +you. They're cold-blooded, I reckin, same as rattlesnakes. Cool nights +always do drive 'em in, seems like." + +"It's going to be sort of coolish to-night," said Bill casually. + +It certainly was. I don't remember a chillier night in years. My teeth +were chattering a little--from cold--before we turned in. I retired with +all my clothes on, including my boots and leggings, and I wished I had +brought along my earmuffs. I also buttoned my watch into my lefthand +shirt pocket, the idea being if for any reason I should conclude to move +during the night I would be fully equipped for traveling. The door would +not stay closely shut--the doorjamb had sagged a little and the wind +kept blowing the door ajar. But after a while we dozed off. + +It was one-twenty-seven A.M. when I woke with a violent start. I know +this was the exact time because that was when my watch stopped. I peered +about me in the darkness. The door was wide open--I could tell that. +Down on the floor there was a dragging, scuffling sound, and from almost +beneath me a pair of small red eyes peered up phosphorescently. + +"He's here!" I said to my companion as I emerged from my blankets; and +he, waking instantly, seemed instinctively to know whom I meant. I used +to wonder at the ease with which a cockroach can climb a perfectly +smooth wall and run across the ceiling. I know now that to do this is +the easiest thing in the world--if you have the proper incentive behind +you. I had gone up one wall of the tent and had crossed over and was in +the act of coming down the other side when Bill burst in, his eyes +blurred with sleep, a lighted lamp in one hand and a gun in the other. + +I never was so disappointed in my life because it wasn't a Hydrophobic +Skunk at all. It was a pack rat, sometimes called a trade rat, paying us +a visit. The pack or trade rat is also a denizen of the Grand Canon. He +is about four times as big as an ordinary rat and has an appetite to +correspond. He sometimes invades your camp and makes free with your +things, but he never steals anything outright--he merely trades with +you; hence his name. He totes off a side of meat or a bushel of meal and +brings a cactus stalk in; or he will confiscate your saddlebags and +leave you in exchange a nice dry chip. He is honest, but from what I +can gather he never gets badly stuck on a deal. + +Next morning at breakfast Johnny and Bill were doing a lot of laughing +between them over something or other. But we had our revenge! About +noon, as we were emerging at the head of the trail, we met one of the +guides starting down with a couple that, for the sake of convenience, we +had christened Clarence and Clarice. Shorty hailed us. + +"How's everything down at the camp?" he inquired. + +"Oh, all right!" replied Bill--"only there's a good many of them +Hydrophoby Skunks pesticatin' about. Last night we seen four." + +Clarence and Clarice crossed startled glances, and it seemed to me that +Clarice's cheek paled a trifle; or it may have been Clarence's cheek +that paled. He bent forward and asked Shorty something, and as we +departed full of joy and content we observed that Shorty was composing +himself to unload that stock horror tale. It made us very happy. + +By common consent we had named them Clarence and Clarice on their +arrival the day before. At first glance we decided they must have come +from Back Bay, Boston--probably by way of Lenox, Newport and Palm Beach; +if Harvard had been a co-educational institution we should have figured +them as products of Cambridge. It was a shock to us all when we learned +they really hailed from Chicago. They were nearly of a height and a +breadth, and similar in complexion and general expression; and +immediately after arriving they had appeared for the ride down the +Bright Angel in riding suits that were identical in color, cut and +effect--long-tailed, tight-buttoned coats; derby hats; stock collars; +shiny top boots; cute little crops, and form-fitting riding trousers +with those Bartlett pear extensions midships and aft--and the prevalent +color was a soft, melting, misty gray, like a cow's breath on a frosty +morning. Evidently they had both patronized the same tailor. + +He was a wonder, that tailor. Using practically the same stage effects, +he had, nevertheless, succeeded in making Clarence look feminine and +Clarice look masculine. We had gone down to the rim to see them off. And +when they passed us in all the gorgeousness of their city bridle-path +regalia, enthroned on shaggy mules, behind a flock of tourists in +nondescript yet appropriate attire, and convoyed by a cowboy who had no +reverence in his soul for the good, the sweet and the beautiful, but +kept sniggering to himself in a low, coarse way, we felt--all of +us--that if we never saw another thing we were amply repaid for our +journey to Arizona. + +The exactly opposite angle of this phenomenon was presented by a certain +Eastern writer, a member, as I recall, of the Jersey City school of Wild +West story writers, who went to Arizona about two years ago to see if +the facts corresponded with his fiction; if not he would take steps to +have the facts altered--I believe that was the idea. He reached El Tovar +at Grand Canon in the early morning, hurried at once to his room and +presently appeared attired for breakfast. Competent eyewitnesses gave +me the full details. He wore a flannel shirt that was unbuttoned at the +throat to allow his Adam's apple full sweep, a hunting coat, buckskin +pants and high boots, and about his waist was a broad belt supporting on +one side a large revolver--one of the automatic kind, which you start in +to shooting by pulling the trigger merely and then have to throw a +bucket of water on it to make it stop--and on the other side, as a +counterpoise, was a buck-handled bowie knife such as was so universally +not used by the early pioneers of our country. + +As he crossed the lobby, jangling like a milk wagon, he created a +pronounced impression upon all beholders. The hotel is managed by an +able veteran of the hotel business, assisted by a charming and +accomplished wife; it is patronized by scientists, scholars and +cosmopolitans, who come from all parts of the world to see the Grand +Canon; and it is as up-to-the-minute in its appointments and service as +though it fronted on Broadway, or Chestnut Street, or Pennsylvania +Avenue. + +Our hero careened across the intervening space. On reaching the dining +room he snatched off his coat and, with a gesture that would have turned +Hackett or Faversham as green with envy as a processed stringbean, flung +it aside and prepared to enter. It was plain that he proposed to put on +no airs before the simple children of the desert wilds. He would eat his +antelope steak and his grizzly b'ar chuck in his shirt-sleeves, the way +Kit Carson and Old Man Bridger always did. + +[Illustration: HE WAS A REGULAR MOVING PICTURE COWBOY AND GAVE GENERAL +SATISFACTION] + +The young woman who presides over the dining room met him at the door. +In the cool, clarified accents of a Wellesley graduate, which she is, +she invited him to have on his things if he didn't mind. She also +offered to take care of his hardware for him while he was eating. He +consented to put his coat back on, but he clung to his weapons--there +was no telling when the Indians might start an uprising. Probably at the +moment it would have deeply pained him to learn that the only Indian +uprising reported in these parts in the last forty years was a carbuncle +on the back of the neck of Uncle Hopi Hooligan, the gentle +copper-colored floorwalker of the white-goods counter in the Hopi House, +adjacent to the hotel! + +However, he stayed on long enough to discover that even this far west +ordinary human garments make a most excellent protective covering for +the stranger. Many of the tourists do not do this. They arrive in the +morning, take a hurried look at the Canon, mail a few postal cards, buy +a Navajo blanket or two and are out again that night. Yet they could +stay on for a month and make every hour count. To begin with, there is +the Canon, worth a week of anybody's undivided attention. Within easy +reach are the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forests--thousands of +acres of trees turned to solid agate. If these things were in Europe +they would be studded thick with hotels and Americans by the thousand +would flock across the seas to look at them. There are cliff-dwellers' +ruins older than ancient Babylon and much less expensive. + +The reservations of the Hopis and the Navajos, most distinctive of all +the Southern tribes, are handy, while all about stretches a big +Government reserve full of natural wonders and unnatural ones, +too--everything on earth except a Lover's Leap. There are unexcelled +facilities for Lover's Leaps, too--thousands of appropriate places are +within easy walking distance of the hotel; but no lover ever yet cared +to leap where he would have to drop five or six thousand feet before he +landed. He'd be such a mussy lover; no satisfaction to himself then--or +to the undertaker, either. + +However, as I was saying, most of the tourists run in on the morning +train and out again on the evening train. To this breed belonged a youth +who dropped in during our stay; I think he must have followed the crowd +in. As he came out from breakfast I chanced to be standing on the side +veranda and I presume he mistook me for one of the hired help. This +mistake has occurred before when I was stopping at hotels. + +"My friend," he said to me in the patronizing voice of an experienced +traveler, "is there anything interesting to see round here at this time +of day?" + +Either he had not heard there was a Grand Canon going on regularly in +that vicinity or he may have thought it was open only for matinees and +evenings. So I took him by the hand and led him over to the curio store +and let him look at the Mexican drawnwork. It seemed to satisfy him, +too--until by chance he glanced out of a window and discovered that the +Canon was in the nature of a continuous performance. + +The same week there arrived a party of six or eight Easterners who +yearned to see some of those real genuine Wild Western characters such +as they had met so often in a film. The manager trotted out a troupe of +trail guides for them--all ex-cowboys; but they, being merely half a +dozen sunburned, quiet youths in overalls, did not fill the bill at all. +The manager hated to have his guests depart disappointed. Privately he +called his room clerk aside and told him the situation and the room +clerk offered to oblige. + +The room clerk had come from Ohio two years before and was a mighty +accommodating young fellow. He slipped across to the curio store and put +on a big hat and some large silver spurs and a pair of leather chaps +made by one of the most reliable mail-order houses in this country. Thus +caparisoned, he mounted a pony and came charging across the lawn, +uttering wild ki-yis and quirting his mount at every jump. He steered +right up the steps to the porch where the delighted Easterners were +assembled, and then he yanked the pony back on his haunches and held him +there with one hand while with the other he rolled a brown-paper +cigarette--which was a trick he had learned in a high-school frat at +Cincinnati--and altogether he was the picture of a regular +moving-picture cowboy and gave general satisfaction. + +If the cowboys are disappointing in their outward aspect, however, +Captain Jim Hance is not. The captain is the official prevaricator of +the Grand Canon. It is probably the only salaried job of the sort in the +world--his competitors in the same line of business mainly work for the +love of it. He is a venerable retired prospector who is specially +retained by the Santa Fe road for the sole purpose of stuffing the +casual tourist with the kind of fiction the casual tourist's system +seems to crave. He just moons round from spot to spot, romancing as he +goes. + +Two of the captain's standbys have been advertised to the world. One of +them deals with the sad fate of his bride, who on her honeymoon fell off +into the Canon and lodged on a rim three hundred feet below. "I was two +days gettin' down to the poor little thing," he tells you, "and then I +seen both her hind legs was broke." Here the captain invariably pauses +and looks out musingly across the Canon until the victim bites with an +impatient "What happened then?" "Oh, I knew she wouldn't be no use to me +any more as a bride--so I shot her!" The other tale he saves up until +some tenderfoot notices the succession of blazes upon the treetrunks +along one of the forest trails and wants to know what made those +peculiar marks upon the bark all at the same height from the earth. +Captain Hance explains that he himself did it--with his elbows and +knees--while fleeing from a war party of Apaches. + +His newest one, though--the one he is featuring this year--is, in the +opinion of competent judges, the gem of the Hance collection. It +concerns the fate of one Total Loss Watkins, an old and devoted friend +of the captain. As a preliminary he leads a group of wide-eared, +doe-eyed victims to the rim of the Canon. "Right here," he says +sorrowfully, "was where poor old Total slipped off one day. It's two +thousand feet to the first ledge and we thought he was a gone fawnskin, +sure! But he had on rubber boots, and he had the presence of mind to +light standing up. He bounced up and down for two days and nights +without stoppin', and then we had to get a wingshot to kill him in order +to keep him from starvin' to death." + +The next stop will be Southern California, the Land of Perpetual +Sunshine--except when it rains! + + + + +_HOW DO YOU LIKE THE CLIMATE?_ + +[Illustration] + +_How Do You Like the Climate?_ + + +ONCE upon a time a stranger went to Southern California; and when he was +asked the customary question--to wit: "How do you like the climate?" he +said: "No, I don't like it!" So they destroyed him on the spot. I have +forgotten now whether they merely hanged him on the nearest tree or +burned him at the stake; but they destroyed him utterly and hid his +bones in an unmarked grave. + +History, that lying jade, records that when Balboa first saw the Pacific +he plunged breast-deep into the waves, drew his sword and waved it on +high, probably using for that purpose the Australian crawl stroke; and +then, in that generous and carefree way of the early discoverers, +claimed the ocean and all points west in the name of his Catholic +Majesty, Carlos the Cutup, or Pedro the Impossible, or whoever happened +to be the King of Spain for the moment. Personal investigation convinces +me that the current version of the above incident was wrong. + +What Balboa did first was to state that he liked the climate better than +any climate he'd ever met; was perfectly crazy about it, in fact, and +intended to sell out back East and move West just as soon as he could +get word home to his folks; after which, still following the custom of +the country, he bought a couple of Navajo blankets and some moccasins +with blue beadwork on the toes, mailed a few souvenir postcards to close +friends, and had his photograph taken showing him standing in the midst +of the tropical verdure, with a freshly picked orange in his hand. And +if he waved his sword at all it was with the idea of forcing the +real-estate agents to stand back and give him air. I am sure that these +are the correct details, because that is what every round-tripper does +upon arriving in Southern California; and, though Balboa finished his +little jaunt of explorations at a point some distance below the +California state line, he was still in the climate belt. Life out there +in that fair land is predicated on climate; out there climate is +capitalized, organized and systematized. Every native is a climate +booster; so is every newcomer as soon as he has stuck round long enough +to get the climate habit, which is in from one to three days. They talk +climate; they think climate; they breathe it by day; they snore it by +night; and in between times they live on it. And it is good living, +too--especially for the real-estate people and the hotel-keepers. + +Southern Californians brag of their climate just as New York brags of +its wickedness and its skyscrapers, and as Richmond brags of its cooking +and its war memories. I don't blame them either; the California climate +is worth all the brags it gets. Back East in the wintertime we have +weather; out in Southern California they never have weather--nothing but +climate. For hours on hours a native will stand outdoors, with his hat +off and his head thrown back, inhaling climate until you can hear his +nostrils smack. And after you've been on the spot a day or two you're +doing the same thing yourself, for, in addition to being salubrious, the +California climate is catching. + +[Illustration: THE BOY WHO SELLS YOU A PAPER AND THE YOUTH WHO BLACKENS +YOUR SHOES BOTH SHOW SOLICITUDE] + +Just as soon as you cross the Arizona line you discover that you have +entered the climate belt. As your train whizzes past the monument that +marks the boundary an earnest-minded passenger leans over, taps you on +the breastbone and informs you that you are now in California, and +wishes to know, as man to man, whether you don't regard the climate as +about the niftiest article in that line you ever experienced! At the +hotel the young lady of the telephone switchboard, who calls you in the +morning, plugs in the number of your room; and when you drowsily answer +the bell she informs you that it is now eight-thirty and--What do you +think of the climate? The boy who sells you a paper and the youth who +blackens your shoes both show solicitude to elicit your views upon this +paramount subject. + +At breakfast the waiter finds out--if he can--how you like the climate +before finding out how you like your eggs. When you pay your bill on +going away the clerk somehow manages to convey the impression that the +charges have been remarkably moderate considering what you have enjoyed +in the matter of climate. Punching your round-trip ticket on the train +starting East, the conductor has a few well-merited words to speak on +behalf of the climate of the Glorious Southland, the same being the +favorite pet name of the resident classes for the entire lower end of +the state of California. + +Everybody is doing it, including press, pulpit and general public. The +weather story--beg pardon, the climate story--is the most important +thing in the daily paper, especially if a blizzard has opportunely +developed back East somewhere and is available for purposes of +comparison. At Los Angeles, which is the great throbbing heart of the +climate belt, I went as a guest to a stag given at the handsome new +clubhouse of a secret order renowned the continent over for its +hospitality and its charities. We sat, six or seven hundred of us, in a +big assembly hall, smoked cigars and drank light drinks, and witnessed +some corking good sparring bouts by non-professional talent. There were +two or three ministers present--fine, alert representatives of the +modern type of city clergymen. When eleven o'clock came the master of +ceremonies announced the toast, To Our Absent Brothers! and called upon +one of those clergymen to respond to it. + +The minister climbed up on the platform--a tall man, with a thick crop +of hair and a profile as clean cut as a cameo and as mobile as an +actor's, the face of a born orator. He could talk, too, that preacher! +In language that was poetic without being sloppy he paid a tribute to +the spirit of fraternity that fairly lifted us out of our chairs. Every +man there was touched, I think--and deeply touched; no man who believed +in the brotherhood of man, whether he practiced it or not, could have +listened unmoved to that speech. He spoke of the absent ones. Some of +them he said had answered the last rollcall, and some were stretched +upon the bed of affliction, and some were unavoidably detained by +business in the East; and he intimated that those in the last category +who had been away for as long as three weeks wouldn't know the old place +when they got back!--Applause. + +This naturally brought him round to the subject of Los Angeles as a city +of business and homes. He pointed out its marvelous growth--quoting +freely from the latest issue of the city directory and other reliable +authorities to prove his figures; he made a few heartrousing predictions +touching on its future prospects, as tending to show that in a year or +less San Francisco and other ambitious contenders along the Coast would +be eating at the second table; he peopled the land clear back to the +mountains with new homes and new neighbors; and he wound up, in a burst +of vocal glory, with the most magnificent testimonial for the climate I +ever heard any climate get. Did he move his audience then? Oh, but +didn't he move them, though! Along toward the close of the third minute +of uninterrupted cheering I thought the roof was gone. + +On the day after my arrival I made one very serious mistake; in fact, it +came near to being a fatal one. I met a lady, and naturally right away +she asked me the customary opening question. Every conversation between +a stranger and a resident begins according to that formula. Still it +seemed to me an inopportune hour for bringing up the subject. It was +early in March and the day was one of those days which a greenhorn from +the East might have been pardoned for regarding as verging upon the +chilly--not to say the raw. Also, it seemed to be raining. I say it +seemed to be raining, because no true Southern Californian would admit +any actual defects in the climatic arrangements. If pressed he might +concede that ostensibly an infinitesimal percentage of precipitation was +descending, and that apparently the mercury had descended a notch or two +in the tube. Further than that, in the absence of the official reports, +he would not care to commit himself. + +You never saw such touching loyalty anywhere! Those scoffing neighbors +of Noah who kept denying on there was going to be any flood right up to +the moment when they went down for the third time were rank amateurs +alongside a seasoned resident of Los Angeles. I was newly arrived, +however, and I hadn't acquired the ethics yet; and, besides, I had +contracted a bad cold and had been taking a number of things for it and +for the moment was, as you might say, full of conflicting emulsions. So, +in reply to this lady's question, I said it occurred to me that the +prevalent atmospheric conditions might for the nonce stand a few +trifling alterations without any permanent ill effects. + +I repeat that this was a mistake; for this particular lady was herself a +recent arrival, and of all the incurable Californians, the new ones are +the most incurable. She gave me one look--but such a look! From a +reasonably solid person I became first a pulp and then a pap; and then, +reversing the processes of creation as laid down in Genesis, first +chapter, and first to fifth verses, I liquefied and turned to gas, and +darkness covered me, and I became void and without form, and passed off +in the form of a vapor, leaving my clothes inhabited only by a blushing +and embarrassed emptiness. When the outraged lady abated the intensity +of her scornful gaze and I painfully reassembled my astral body out of +space and projected it back into my earthly tenement again, I found I'd +shrunk so in these various processes that nothing I wore fitted me any +longer. + +I shall never commit that error again. I know better now. If I were a +condemned criminal about to die on a gallows at the state penitentiary, +I would make the customary announcement touching on my intention of +going straight to Heaven--condemned criminals never seem to have any +doubt on that point--and then in conclusion I would add that after +Southern California, I knew I wouldn't care for the climate Up There. +Then I would step serenely off into eternity, secure in the belief that, +no matter how heinous my crime might have been, all the local papers +would give me nice obituary notices. + +I'd be absolutely sure of the papers, because the papers are the last to +concede that there ever was or ever will be a flaw in the climate +anywhere. In a certain city out on the Coast there is one paper that +refuses even to admit that a human being can actually expire while +breathing the air of Southern California. It won't go so far as to say +that anybody has died--"passed away" is the term used. You read in its +columns that Medulla Oblongata, the Mexican who was kicked in the head +by a mule last Sunday afternoon, has passed away at the city hospital; +or that, during yesterday's misunderstanding in Chinatown between the +Bing Bangs and the Ok Louies, two Tong men were shot and cut in such a +manner that they practically passed away on the spot. When I was there I +traveled all one day over the route of an unprecedented cold snap that +had happened along a little earlier and mussed up the citrus groves; +and, though I will not go so far as to say that the orange crop had +died or that it had been killed, it did look to me as though it had +passed away to a considerable extent. + +This sort of visitation, however, doesn't occur often; in fact, it never +had occurred before--and the chances are it never will occur again. Next +to taxes and the high cost of living, I judge the California climate to +be about the most dependable institution we have in this country--yes, +and one of the most satisfactory, too. To its climate California is +indebted for being the most extravagantly beautiful spot I've seen on +this continent. It isn't just beautiful in spots--it is beautiful all +over; it isn't beautiful in a sedate, reserved way--there is a prodigal, +riotous, abandoned spendthriftiness to its beauty. + +I don't know of anything more wonderful than an automobile ride through +one of the fruit valleys in the Mission country. In one day's +travel--or, at most, two--you can get a taste of all the things that +make this farthermost corner of the United States at once so diversified +and so individual--sky-piercing mountain and mirage-painted desert; +seashore and upland; ranch lands, farm lands and fruit lands; city and +town; traces of our oldest civilization and stretches of our newest; +wilderness and jungle and landscape garden; the pines of the snows, the +familiar growths of the temperate zone, the palms of the tropics; and +finally--which is California's own--the Big Trees. All day you may ride +and never once will your eye rest upon a picture that is commonplace or +trumpery. + +Going either North or South, your road lies between mountains. To the +eastward, shutting out the deserts from this domain of everlasting +summer, are the Sierras--great saw-edged old he-mountains, masculine as +bulls or bucks, all rugged and wrinkled, bearded with firs and pines +upon their jowls, but bald-headed and hoar with age atop like the +Prophets of old. But the mountains of the Coast Range, to the westward, +are full-bosomed and maternal, mothering the valleys up to them; and +their round-uddered, fecund slopes are covered with softest green. Only +when you come closer to them you see that the garments on their breasts +are not silky-smooth as they looked at a distance, but shirred and +gored, gathered and smocked. I suppose even a lady mountain never gets +too old to follow the fashions! + +Now you pass an orchard big enough to make a hundred of your average +Eastern orchards; and if it be of apples or plums or cherries, and the +time be springtime, it is all one vast white bridal bouquet; but if it +be of almonds or peaches the whole land, maybe for miles on end, blazes +with a pink flame that is the pinkest pink in the world--pinker than the +heart of a ripe watermelon; pinker than the inside of a blond cow. + +Here is a meadowland of purest, deepest green; and flung across it, like +a streak of sunshine playing hooky from Heaven, is a slash of wild +yellow poppies. There, upon a hillside, stands a clump of gnarly, +dwarfed olives, making you think of Bible times and the Old Testament. +Or else it is a great range, where cattle by thousands feed upon the +slopes. Or a crested ridge, upon which the gum trees stand up in long +aisles, sorrowful and majestic as the funereal groves of the ancient +Greeks--that is, provided it was the ancient Greeks who had the funereal +groves. + +Or, best of all and most striking in its contrasts, you will see a hill +all green, with a nap on it like a family album; and right on the top of +it an old, crumbly gray mission, its cross gleaming against the skyline; +and, down below, a modern town, with red roofs and hipped windows, its +houses buried to their eaves in palms and giant rose bushes, and huge +climbing geraniums, and all manner of green tropical growths that are +Nature's own Christmas trees, with the red-and-yellow dingle-dangles +growing upon them. Or perhaps it is a gorge choked with the enormous +redwoods, each individual tree with a trunk like the Washington +Monument. And, if you are only as lucky as we were, up overhead, across +the blue sky, will be drifting a hundred fleecy clouds, one behind the +other, like woolly white sheep grazing upon the meadows of the +firmament. + +Everywhere the colors are splashed on with a barbaric, almost a +theatrical, touch. It's a regular backdrop of a country; its scenery +looks as though it belonged on a stage--as though it should be painted +on a curtain. You almost expect to see a chorus of comic-opera brigands +or a bevy of stage milkmaids come trooping out of the wings any minute. +Who was the libelous wretch who said that the flowers of California had +no perfume and the birds there had no song? Where we passed through +tangled woods the odors distilled from the wild flowers by the sun's +warmth were often almost suffocating in their sweetness; and in a +yellow-tufted bush on the lawn at Coronado I came upon a mocking-bird +singing in a way to make his brother minstrel of Mobile or Savannah feel +like applying for admission to a school of expression and learning the +singing business all over again. + +[Illustration: OUT FROM UNDER A ROCK SOMEWHERE WILL CRAWL A REAL ESTATE +AGENT] + +At the end of the valley--top end or bottom end as the case may be--you +come to a chain of lesser mountains, dropped down across your path like +a trailing wing of the Indians' fabled thunder-bird, vainly trying to +shut you out from the next valley. You climb the divide and run through +the pass, with a brawling river upon one side and tall cliffs upon the +other; and then all of a sudden the hills magically part and you are +within sight--almost within touch--of the ocean; for in this favored +land the mountains come right down to the sea and the sea comes right up +to the mountains. It may be upon a tiny bay that you have emerged, with +the meadows sloping straight to tidemark, and out beyond the wild fowl +feeding by the kelp beds. + +Or perhaps you have come out upon a ragged, rugged headland, crowned +belike with a single wind-twisted tree, grotesquely suggesting a frizzly +chicken; and away below, straight and sheer, are the rocks rising out of +the water like the jaws of a mangle. Down there in that ginlike reef +Neptune is forever washing out his shirt in a smother of foamy lather. +And he has spilled his bluing pot, too--else how could all the sea be so +blue? On the outermost rocks the sea-lions have stretched themselves, +looking like so many overgrown slugs; and they lie for hours and sun +themselves and bellow--or, at least, I am told they do so on occasion. +There was unfortunately no bellowing going on the day I was there. + +The unearthly beauty of the whole thing overpowers you. The poet that +lives in nearly every human soul rouses within you and you feel like +withdrawing to yon dense grove or yon peaked promontory to commune with +Nature. But be advised in season. Restrain yourself! Carefully refrain! +Do not do so! Because out from under a rock somewhere will crawl a +real-estate agent to ask you how you like the climate and take a dollar +down as first payment on a fruit ranch, or a suburban lot, or a seaside +villa--or something. + +Climate did it and he can prove it. Only he doesn't have to prove +it--you admit it. I had never seen the Mediterranean when I went West; +but I saw the cypresses of Del Monte, and the redwood grove in the canyon +just below Harry Leon Wilson's place, down past Carmel-by-the-Sea; and +that was sufficient. I had no burning yearning to see Naples and die, as +the poet suggested. I felt that I would rather see Monterey Bay again on +a bright March day and live! + +And for all of this--for fruit, flowers and scenery, for real-estate +agents, and for a race of the most persistent boosters under the +sun--the climate is responsible. Climate advertised is responsible for +the rush of travel from the East that sets in with the coming of winter +and lasts until well into the following spring; and climate realized is +responsible for the string of tourist hotels that dot the Coast all +along from just below San Francisco to the Mexican border. + +Both externally and internally the majority of these hotels are +singularly alike. Mainly they are rambling frame structures done in a +modified Spanish architecture--late Spanish crossed on Early +Peoria--with a lobby so large that, loafing there, you feel as though +you were in the waiting-room of the Grand Central Terminal, and with a +dining room about the size of the state of Rhode Island, and a sun +parlor that has windows all round, so as to give its occupants the +aspect, when viewed from without, of being inmates of an aquarium; and a +gorgeous tea room done in the style of one of the French Louies--Louie +the Limit, I guess. There are some notable exceptions to the rule--some +of the places have pleasing individualities of their own, but most of +them were cut off the same pattern. Likewise the bulk of their winter +patrons are cut off the same pattern. + +The average Eastern tourist is a funny biped anyhow, and he is at his +funniest out in California. Living along the Eastern seaboard are a +large number of well-to-do people who harken not to the slogan of See +America First, because many of them cannot see America at any price; +they can just barely recognize its existence as a suitable place for +making money, but no place for spending it. What makes life worth living +to them is the fact that Europe is distant only a four-day run by the +four-day boat, the same being known as a four-day boat because only four +days are required for the run between Daunt's Rock and Ambrose Channel, +which is a very convenient arrangement for deep-sea divers and +long-distance swimmers desiring to get on at Daunt's Rock and get off in +Ambrose Channel, but slightly extending the journey for passengers who +are less amphibious by nature. + +These people constitute one breed of Eastern tourists. There is the +other breed, who are willing to see America provided it is made over to +conform with the accepted Eastern model. Those who can afford the +expense go to Florida in the winter; but it requires at least a million +in small change to feel at home in that setting, and so a good many who +haven't quite a million to spare, head for Southern California as the +next best spot on the map. Arriving there, they endeavor to reproduce on +as exact a scale as possible the life of the ultra fashionable Florida +resorts; the result is what a burlesque manager would call a Number Two +Palm Beach company playing the Western Wheel. + +Up and down the Coast these tourists traipse for months on end, +spending a week here and two weeks there, and doing the same things in +the same way at each new stopping place. You meet them, part from them, +and meet them again at the next stand, until the monotony of it grows +maddening; and always they are intently following the routine you saw +them following last week or the week before, or the week before that. +They have traveled clear across the continent to practice such +diversions as they might have had within two hours' ride of Philadelphia +or New York; and they are going to practice them, too, or know the +reason why. + +Of course they are not all constituted this way; I am speaking now of +the impression created in California by tourists in bulk. They decline +to do the things for which this country is best adapted; they will not +see the things for which it is most famous. Few of them take the +roughing trips up into the mountains; fewer still visit the desert +country. All about them the tremendous engineering contracts that have +made this land a commercial Arabian Nights' Entertainment are being +carried out--the mighty reclamation schemes; the irrigation projects; +the damming up of canyons and the shoveling away of mountains--but your +average group of Eastern tourists pass these by with dull and glazed +eyes, their souls being bound up in the desire to reach the next hotel +on the route with the least possible waste of time, and take up the +routine where it was broken off at the last hotel. + +They tennis and they golf, and some go horseback riding and some take +drives; and at one or two places there is polo in the season. Likewise, +in accordance with the rules laid down by the Palm Beach authorities, +the women change clothes as often as possible during the course of the +day; and in the evening all hands appear in full dress for dinner, the +same being very wearing on men and very pleasing to women--that is, all +of them do except a few obstinate persons who defy convention and remain +comfortable. After dinner some of the younger people dance and some of +the older ones play bridge; but the vast majority sit round--and then +sit round some more and wonder whether eleven o'clock will ever come so +they can go to bed! + +A good many take the wrong kind of clothes out there with them. They +have read in the advertisements that Southern California is a land of +perpetual balm, where flowers bloom the year round; and they pack their +trunks with the lightest and thinnest wearing apparel they own, which is +a mistake. The natives know better than that. The all-wool sweater is +the national garment of the Western Coast--both sexes and all ages go to +it unanimously. Experience proves it the ideal thing to wear; for in +Southern California in the winter it is never really hot in the sun and +it is often exceedingly cool in the shade. Besides, there is a sea wind +that blows pretty regularly and which makes a specialty of working +through the crannies in a silk shirt or a lingerie blouse. The +chilliest, most pallid-looking things I ever saw in my life were a pair +of white linen trousers I found in the top tray of my trunk when I +reached the extreme lower end of California. I had to cover them under +two blankets and a bedspread that night to keep the poor things from +freezing stiff. + +The medium-weight garments an Easterner wears between seasons are +admirably suited for the West Coast in the winter; but the guileless +tenderfoot who is making his first trip to California usually doesn't +learn this until it is too late. If he is wise he studies out the +situation on his arrival, and thereafter takes his overcoat with him +when he goes riding and his sweater when he goes walking; but there are +many others who will be summer boys and girls though they perish in the +attempt. + +At Coronado I witnessed a mighty pitiable sight. It was a cool day, +cooler than ordinary even, with a stiff wind blowing skeiny shreds of +sea fog in off the gray ocean; and a beating rain was falling at +frequent intervals. The veranda was full of Easterners trying to look +comfortable in summer clothes and not succeeding, while the road in +front was dotted with Westerners, comfortable and cozy in their thick +sweaters. There emerged upon the wind-swept porch a youth who would have +been a sartorial credit to himself on a Florida beach in February or +upon a Jersey board-walk in August; but he did not coincide with the +atmospheric scheme of things on a rainy March day down in Southern +California. + +[Illustration: HE FELT HE WAS PROPERLY DRESSED FOR THE TIME, THE PLACE +AND THE OCCASION] + +To begin with, he was a spindly and fragile person, with a knobby +forehead and a fade-away face. Dressed in close-fitting black and turned +sidewise, with his profile to you, he would instantly suggest a neatly +rolled umbrella with a plain bone handle. But he was not dressed in +black; he was dressed in white--all white, like a bride or a bandaged +thumb; white silk shirt; white flannel coat, with white pearl buttons +spangled freely over it; white trousers; white Panama hat; white socks; +white buckskin shoes, with white rubber soles on them. He was, in short, +all white except his face, which was a pinched, wan blue, and his nose, +which was a suffused and chilly red. If my pencil had had an eraser +on it I'm satisfied I could have backed him up against the wall and +rubbed him right out; but he bore up splendidly. + +It was plain he felt that he was properly dressed for the time, the +place and the occasion; and to him that was ample compensation for his +suffering. I heard afterward that he lost three sets of tennis and had a +congestive chill--all in the course of the same afternoon. + +The unconquerable determination of the Eastern tourist to have Southern +California conform to his back-home standards is responsible for the +fact that many of the tourist hotels out there are not so typical of the +West as they might be--and as in my humble judgment they should be--but +are as Eastern as it is possible to make them--Eastern in cuisine, in +charges and in their operating schedules. Here, again, there are some +notable exceptions. + +In the supposedly wilder sections of the West, lying between the Rockies +and the Sierras, the situation is different. It is notably different in +Arizona and New Mexico in the South, and in Utah, Montana and Wyoming +in the North. There the person who serves you for hire is neither your +menial nor your superior; whereas in the East he or she is nearly always +one or the other, and sometimes both at once. This particular type of +Westerner doesn't patronize you; neither does he cringe to you in +expectation of a tip. He gives you the best he has in stock, meanwhile +retaining his own self-respect and expecting you to do the same. He +ennobles and dignifies personal service. + +Out on the Coast, however--or at least at several of the big hotels out +on the Coast--the system, thanks to Eastern influence, has been changed. +The whole scheme is patterned after the accepted New York model. The +charges for small services are as exorbitant as in New York, and the +iniquities of the tipping system are worked out as amply and as wickedly +as in the city where they originated. + +Somebody with a taste for statistics figured it out once that if a man +owned a three-dollar hat and wore it for two months, lunching every day +at a New York cafe, and if he dined four nights a week at a New York +restaurant and attended the theater twice a week, his hat at the end of +those two months would cost him in tips eighteen dollars and seventy +cents! No, on second thought, I guess it was a pair of earmuffs that +would have cost him eighteen-seventy. + +A hat would have been more. + +It would be more in Southern California--I'm sure of that. There the +tipping habit is made more expensive by reason of the prevalent spirit +of Western generosity. The born Westerner never has got used to dimes +and nickels. To him quarters are still chicken-feed and a half dollar is +small change. So the tips are just as numerous as in New York and for +the same service they are frequently larger. + +A lot has been said and written about the marvelous palms of Lower +California and a lot more might be said--for they are outstretched +everywhere; and if you don't cross them with silver at frequent +intervals you would do well to try camping out for a change. Likewise a +cursory glance at the prices on some of the menus is calculated to make +a New Yorker homesick--they're so familiarly and unreasonably steep. And +frequently the dishes you get aren't typical of the country; they +are--thanks again be to the Easterner--mostly transplanted imitations of +the concoctions of the Broadway and the Fifth Avenue chefs. + +There are compensations, though. There are some hotels that are operated +on admirably different lines, and there are abundant opportunities for +escaping altogether from hotel life and seeing this Land of the Living +Backdrop where it is untainted and unspoiled; where the hills are +clothed in green and yellow; where little Spanishy looking towns nestle +below the Missions, and the mocking-birds sing, and the real-estate +boomer leaps from crag to crag, sounding his flute-like note. And don't +forget the climate! But that is unnecessary advice. You won't have a +chance to forget it--not for a minute you won't! + + + + +_IN THE HAUNT OF THE NATIVE SON_ + +[Illustration] + +_In the Haunt of the Native Son_ + + +THERE are various ways of entering San Francisco, and the traveling +general passenger agent of any one of half a dozen trunklines stands +ready to prove to you--absolutely beyond the peradventure of a +doubt--that his particular way is incomparably the best one; but to my +mind a very satisfactory way is to go overland from Monterey. + +The route we followed led us lengthwise through the wonderful Santa +Clara country, straight up a wide box plait of valley tucked in between +an ornamental double ruffle of mountains. I suppose if we passed one +ranch we passed a thousand--cattle ranches, fruit ranches, hen ranches, +chicken ranches, bee ranches--all the known varieties and subvarieties. + +In California you mighty soon get out of the habit of speaking of farms; +for there are no farms--only ranches. The particular ranch to which you +have reference may be a ten-thousand-acre ranch, where they raise enough +beef critters to feed a standing army, or it may be a half-acre ranch, +where somebody is trying to make things home-like and happy for eight +hens and a rooster; but a ranch it always is, and usually it is a model +of its kind, too. The birds in California do not build nests. They build +ranches. + +Most of the way along the Santa Clara Valley our tires glided upon an +arrow-straight, unbelievably smooth stretch of magnificent automobile +road, which--when it is completed--will extend without a break from the +Oregon line to the Mexican line, and will be the finest, costliest, best +thoroughfare to be found within the boundaries of any state of the +Union, that being the scale upon which they work out their +public-utility plans in the West. + +Eventually the road changes into a paved and curbed avenue, lined with +seemingly unending aisles of the tall gum trees. Soon you begin to +skitter past the suburban villas of rich men, set back in ornamental +landscape effects of green lawns and among tropical verdure. You emerge +from this into a gently rolling plateau, upon which flower gardens of +incomparable richness are interspersed with the homely structures that +inevitably mark the proximity of any great city. There, rising ahead of +you, are the foothills that protect, upon its landward side, San +Francisco, the city that has produced more artists, more poets, more +writers, more actors, more pugilists, more sudden millionaires--cries of +Question! Question! from the Pittsburgh delegation--more good fiction +and more Native Sons than any community in the Western Hemisphere. + +You aren't there yet, however. Next you round a sloping shoulder of a +hill and slide down into a shore road, with the beating, creaming surf +on one side, and on the other a long succession of the sort of +architectural triumphs that have made Coney Island famous. You negotiate +another small ridge and there, suddenly spread out before you, is the +Golden Gate, with the city itself cuddled in between the ocean and the +friendly protecting mountains at its back. The Seal Rocks are there, and +the Cliff House, and the Presidio, and all. New York has a wonderful +harbor entrance; Nature did some of it and man did the rest. San +Francisco has an even more wonderful one, and the hand of man did not +need to touch it. When Nature got through with it, it was a complete and +satisfactory job. + +The first convincing impression the newcomer gets of San Francisco is +that here is a permanent city--a city that has found itself, has +achieved its own personality, and is satisfied with it. Perhaps, because +they are growing so fast, certain of the other Coast cities strike the +casual observer as having just been put up. I was told that a man who +lives on a residential street of San Diego has to mark his house with +chalk when he leaves of a morning in order to know it when he gets home +at night. A real-estate agent told me so, and I do not think a Southern +California real-estate agent would deceive anybody--more particularly a +stranger from the East. So it must be true. And Los Angeles' main +business district is like a transverse slice chopped out of the middle +of Manhattan Island. It isn't Western. It is typically New Yorky--as +alive as New York and as handsomely done. You can almost imagine you are +at the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street. + +San Francisco, it seems to me, isn't like any city on earth except San +Francisco. Once you get away from the larger hotels, which are accurate +copies of the metropolitan article of the East, even to the afternoon +tea-fighting melees of the women, you find yourself in a city that is +absolutely individual and distinctive. It impresses its originality upon +you; it presents itself with an air of having been right there from the +beginning--and this, too, in spite of the fact that the ravages of the +great fire are still visible in old cellar excavations and piles of +debris. Practically every building in the main part of the town has +been rebuilt within eight years and is still new. The scars are fresh, +but the spirit is old and abides. + +This same essence of individuality tinctures the lives, the manners and +the conversations of the people. They do not strike you as being +Westerners or as being transplanted Easterners; they are San +Franciscans. Even when all other signs fail you may, nevertheless, +instantly discern certain unfailing traits--to wit, as follows: 1--A San +Franciscan shudders with ill-concealed horror when anybody refers to his +beloved city as Frisco--which nobody ever does unless it be a raw alien +from the other side of the continent; 2--He does not brag of the climate +with that constancy which provides his neighbor of Los Angeles a +never-failing topic of congenial conversation; and 3--He assures you +with a regretful sighing note in his voice that the old-time romance +disappeared with the destruction of the old-time buildings, the old-time +resorts and the old-time neighborhoods. + +It has been my experience that romance is always in the past tense +anyhow. Romance is a commodity that was extremely plentiful last week or +last year or last century, but for the moment they are entirely out of +it, and can't say with any degree of certainty when a fresh stock will +be coming in. This is largely true of all the formerly romantic cities I +know anything about, and it appears to be especially true of San +Francisco. Romance invariably acquires added value after it has +vanished; in this respect it is very much like a history-making epoch. +An epoch rarely seems to create any great amount of excitement when it +is in process of epoching, or at least the excitement is only temporary +and soon abates. Afterward we look back upon it with a feeling of +longing, but when it was actually coming to pass we took it--after the +first shock of surprise--as a matter of course. + +No doubt our children and our children's children will read in the +text-books that the first decade of the twentieth century was +distinguished as the age when the auto and tango came into use, and +people learned to fly, and grown men wore bracelet watches and carried +their handkerchiefs up their cuffs; and they will repine because they, +too, did not live in those stirring times. But we of the present +generation who recently passed through these experiences have already +accepted them without undue excitement, just as our forefathers in their +day accepted the submarine cable, the galvanic battery and the congress +gaiter. + +[Illustration: EVEN THE PLACE WHERE THE TURKEY TROT ORIGINATED WAS +TROTLESS AND QUIET] + +Age and antiquity give an added value to everything except an egg. In my +own case I know how it was with regard to the Egyptian scarab. For years +I felt that I could never rest satisfied until I had gone to Egypt and +had personally broken into the tomb of some sleeping Pharaoh or some +crumbly old Rameses, and with my own hands had ravished from it a +mummified specimen of that fabled beetle which the ancients worshiped +and buried with them in their tombs. But not long ago I made the +discovery that, in coloring, habits, customs and general walk and +conversation, the scarab of the Egyptians was none other than the +common tumblebug of the Southern dirt roads. Right there was where I +lost interest in the scarab. He was no novelty to me--not after that he +wasn't. As a boy I had known him intimately. + +So, when I was repeatedly assured that the old-time romance had vanished +from San Francisco, and with it the atmosphere that bred Bohemianism and +developed literature and art, and kept alive the spirit of the +Forty-niner times, and all that, I made my own allowances. Those who +mourned for the fire-blasted past may have been right, in a measure. +Certainly the old-time Chinatown isn't there any more--or, at any rate, +isn't there in its physical aspects. The rebuilt Chinatown of San +Francisco, though infinitely larger, isn't so picturesque really or so +Chinesey looking as New York's Chinatown. + +I did not dare to give utterance to this treasonable statement until I +was well away from San Francisco, but it is true all the same. I cruised +the shores of the far-famed and much-written-about Barbary Coast; and +it seemed to me that in its dun-colored tiresomeness and in its +miserable transparent counterfeit of joy it was up to the general +metropolitan average--that it was just as tiresome and humdrum as the +avowedly wicked section of any city always is. + +However, I was told that I had arrived just one week too late to see the +Barbary Coast at its best--meaning by that its worst; for during the +week before the police, growing virtuous, had put the crusher on the +dance-halls and the hobble on the tango-twisters. Even the place where +the turkey trot originated--a place that would naturally be a shrine to +a New Yorker--was trotless and quiet--in mourning for its firstborn. + +The so-called French restaurants, which for years gave an unwholesome +savor to certain phases of San Francisco life, had likewise been +sterilized and purified. I wished I might have got there before the +housecleaning took place; but, even so, I should probably have been +disappointed. What makes the vice of ancient Babylon seem by contrast +more seductive to us than the vice of the Bowery is that Babylon is gone +and the Bowery isn't. + +Likewise the night life of San Francisco, of which in times past I had +read so much, was disillusionizing, because it wasn't visible to the +naked eye. On this proposition Los Angeles puts it all over San +Francisco; for this, though, there is an easy explanation. Los Angeles +boasts what is said to be the completest trolley system in the world; +undoubtedly it is the noisiest in the world. The tracks seem to run +through every street; there is a curve at every corner, I think, and a +switch in the middle of every block. Every thirty seconds or so a car +comes along, and it always comes at top speed and takes the curve +without slackening up; and the motorman is always clanging his gong in a +whole-souled manner that would entitle him to membership in the Swiss +Bellringers. + +Naturally the folks in Los Angeles stay up late--they can't figure on +doing much sleeping anyhow; but either San Francisco has fewer trolley +cars to the acre or else the motormen are not quite so musically +inclined, and people may get to bed at a Christian hour. Most of them do +it, too, if I am one to judge. At night in San Francisco I didn't see a +single owl lunch wagon or meet a single beggar. Newsboys were remarkably +scarce and taxicabs seemed to be few and far between. These things help +to make any other city; without them San Francisco still manages to be a +city--another proof of her individuality. + +The old romance of the Old San Francisco may be dead and buried--the +residents unite in saying that it is, and they ought to know; but, even +so, New San Francisco may well brag today of a greater romance than any +it ever knew--the romance of achievement. Somebody said not long ago +that the greatest of all monuments to American pluck was San Francisco +rebuilt; but if there was pluck in it there was romance too. And there +is romance, plenty of it, in the exposition these people have planned +and are now carrying out to commemorate the opening of the Panama +Canal. + +To begin with, citizens of San Francisco and of the state of California +are paying the whole bill themselves--they did not ask the Federal +Government to contribute a red cent of the millions being spent and that +will be spent, and to date the Federal Government has not contributed a +red cent either. Climatic conditions are in their favor. Other +expositions have had to contend with hot weather--sometimes with beastly +hot weather; those other expositions could not open up until well into +the spring, and they closed perforce with the coming of cold weather in +the fall. But San Francisco is never very hot and never really cold, and +California becomes an out-of-door land as soon as the rains end; so this +fair will be actively and continuously in operation for nine months +instead of being limited to four or five months as the period of its +greatest activities. + +Then, again, there is another advantage--the exposition grounds are +situated well within the city; the site is within easy riding distance +of the civic center and not miles away from the middle of town, as has +been the case in certain other instances in this country where big +expositions were held. It is a place admirably devised by Nature for the +purposes to which it is now being put--a six-hundred-acre tract +stretching along the water-front, with the Presidio at its farther end, +the high hills behind it, and in front of it the exquisite panorama of +the Golden Gate, with emerald islands rising beyond; and Berkeley and +Oakland just across the way; and on beyond, northward across the +narrowing portals of the harbor, the big green mountain of Tamalpais, +rising sheer out of the sea. + +Moreover, the president of the exposition and his aides promised that +the whole thing, down to the minutest detail, would be completed and +ready months before the date set for opening the gates--which furnishes +another strikingly novel note in expositions, if their words come true; +and they declared that, for beauty of conception and harmony of design, +their exposition of 1915 would surpass any exposition ever seen in this +country or in any other country. Probably they are right. I know that, +when I was there, the view from the first rise back of the grounds, +looking down upon that long flat where men by thousands were toiling, +and building after building was rising, made a picture sufficiently +inspiring to warm the enthusiasm and brisken the imagination of any man, +be he alien or native. + +There isn't any doubt, though, that the people of San Francisco are +going to have their hands full when the exposition visitors begin to +pile in. By that I do not mean that the housing and feeding +accommodations and the transit facilities will be deficient; but it is +going to be a most overpoweringly big job to educate the pilgrims up to +the point where they will call San Francisco by its full name. All true +San Franciscans are very touchy on this point--touchy as hedgehogs, they +are; the prejudice extends to all classes, with the possible exception +of the Chinese. + +I heard a story of a seafaring person, ignorant and newly arrived, who +drifted into a waterfront saloon, called for a simple glass of beer and +spoke a few casual words of greeting to the barkeeper--and woke up the +next morning in the hospital with a very bad headache and a bandage +round his throbbing brows. It developed that he had three times in rapid +succession referred to the city as Frisco, and on being warned against +this practice had inquired: + +"Well, wot do you want me to call her--plain Fris?" + +That was the last straw. The barkeeper took a bung-starter and felled +him as flat as a felled seam--and all present agreed that it served him +right. + +An even worse breach of etiquette on the part of the outlander is to +intimate that an earthquake preceded the great fire. That is positively +the unforgivable sin! In any quarter of the city you could get many +subscriptions for a fund to buy something with silver handles on it for +any man who would insist upon talking of earthquakes. To make my meaning +clearer, I will state that there are only two objects of general use in +the civilized world that have silver handles on them, and one of them is +a loving cup; but this article would not be a loving cup. A native will +willingly concede that there was a fire, which burned its memories deep +into the consciousness of the city that recovered from it with such +splendid courage and such inconceivable rapidity; but by common consent +there was nothing else. It does not take the stranger long to get this +point of view, either. + +If I were in charge of the publicity work of the San Francisco Fair I +should advertise two attractions that would surely appeal to all the +women in this country, and to most of the men. In my press work I would +dwell at length upon the fact that in this part of California a woman +may wear any weight and any style of clothes--spring clothes, summer +clothes, fall clothes or winter clothes--and not only be perfectly +comfortable while so doing, but be in the fashion besides; and to be in +the fashion is a thing calculated to make a woman comfortable whether +she otherwise is or not. + +To see a group of four women promenading a San Francisco street on a +pleasant morning is to be reminded of that ballet representing the Four +Seasons, which we used to see in the second act of every well-regulated +extravaganza. The woman nearest the walls has on her furs--it is always +cool in the shade; the one next to her is wearing the very latest +wrinkles in spring garniture; the third one, let us say, is dressed in +the especially becoming frock she bought last October; and the one on +the outside, where the sun shines the brightest, is as summery in her +white ducks and her white slippers as though she had just stepped off +the cover of the August number of a magazine. There is something, too, +about the salt-laden breezes of San Francisco that gives women wonderful +complexions; that detail, properly press-agented, ought to fetch the +entire female population of the United States. + +[Illustration: THE WOMAN NEAREST THE WALL HAS ON HER FURS--IT IS ALWAYS +COOL IN THE SHADE] + +For drawing the men, I would exploit the great cardinal fact that +nowhere in the country--not even in Norfolk or Baltimore or New +Orleans--can you get better things to eat than in San Francisco. For its +size, I believe there are more good clubs and more good restaurants +right there than in any other spot on the habitable globe. Particularly +in the preparation of the typical dishes of the Coast do the San +Francisco cooks excel; their cuisine is based on a sane American +foundation, with a delectable suggestion of the Spanish in it, and +sometimes with a traceable suggestion of the best there is in the +Italian and the Chinese schools of cookery. + +To one whose taste in oysters has been developed by eating the +full-chested bi-valve of the Eastern seaboard and the deep-lunged, +long-bodied product of the Louisiana bayous, the native oyster does not +greatly appeal. A lot has been written and printed about the California +oyster, but in my opinion he will always have considerable difficulty in +living up to his press notices. It takes about a thousand of him to make +a quart and about a hundred of him to make a taste. Even then he doesn't +taste much like a real oyster, but more like an infinitesimal scrap of +sponge where a real oyster camped out overnight once. + +There is a dream of a little fish, however, called a sand dab--he is a +tiny, flounder-shaped titbit hailing from deep water; and for eating +purposes he is probably the best fish that swims--better even than the +pompano of the Gulf--and when you say that you are saying about all +there is to be said for a fish. And the big crabs of the Pacific side +are the hereditary princes of the crab family. They look like +spread-eagles; and properly prepared they taste like Heaven. I often +wonder what the crabsters buy one-half so precious as the stuff they +sell--which is a quotation from Omar, with original interpolations by +me. The domestic cheese of the Sierras is not without its attractions +also, whether you eat it fresh or whether you keep it until its general +aspect and prevalent atmosphere are such as to satisfy even one of those +epicurean cheese-eaters who think that no cheese is fit to eat until you +can't. + +Another thing worthy of mention in connection with this California +school of cookery is that you can pay as little as you please for your +dinner or as much as you please. There are three standbys of the +exchange editor that may be counted upon to appear in the newspapers +about once in so often. One is the hoary-headed and toothless tale +regarding the artist who was hired to renovate religious paintings in a +church in Brussels, and turned in an itemized account including such +entries as--"Correcting the Ten Commandments"; "Restoring the Lost +Souls"; "Renewing Heaven"; and winding up with "Doing Several Odd Jobs +for the Damned." + +The second of the set comes out of retirement at frequent +intervals--whenever some trusting soul runs across a time-stained number +of the Ulster Gazette giving details of the death of George +Washington--I wonder how many million copies of that venerable +counterfeit were printed--and writes in to his home editor about it. + +And the third, the most popular clipping of the three, concerns the +prices that used to govern at the mining camps in the days of the early +gold rush. The story that is most commonly quoted has to do with the +menu of the El Dorado Hotel, at Placerville, where bean soup was a +dollar a plate; hash, lowgrade, seventy-five cents; hash, +eighteen-carat, a dollar--and so on down the list to seventy-five cents +for two Irish potatoes, peeled. + +The cost of living may have gone down subsequently in those parts, but +it has gone back up again--at certain favored spots. If the Argonauts, +those hardy adventurers who flung their gold round so regardlessly and +were not satisfied unless they paid outrageously big prices for +everything, could come back today they would have no cause to complain +at the contemptible paucity of the bill after they had dined at any one +of half a dozen ultra-expensive hotels that are to be found dotted along +the Coast. + +I append herewith a few items selected at random from the price card of +a fashionable establishment in one of the larger Coast cities: caviar +imperial d'Astracan, two dollars for a double portion; buffet +Russe--whatever that is--ninety cents; German asparagus, a single +helping, one dollar and forty cents; blue-point oysters, fifty cents; +fifty cents for clams; Gorgonzola cheese, fifty cents a portion; and, +in a land where peaches and figs grow anywhere and everywhere, +seventy-five cents for an order of brandied peaches and fifty cents for +an order of spiced figs. Even seasoned New Yorkers have been known to +breathe hard on receiving a check for a full meal at certain restaurants +in Los Angeles and San Francisco. + +On the other hand, you can step round any corner in San Francisco and +walk into that institution which people in other large cities are +forever seeking and never finding--a table-d'hote restaurant where a +perfect meal is to be had at a most moderate price. The best Italian +restaurant in the world--and I wish to say, after personal experience, +that Sunny Italy itself is not barred--is a little place on the fringe +of the Barbary Coast. + +There is another place not far away where, for a dollar, you get a +bottle of good domestic wine and a selection from the following range of +dishes: Celery, ripe olives, green olives, radishes, onions, lettuce, +sliced tomatoes, combination salad or crab-meat salad; soup--onion or +consomme; fish--sole, salmon, bass, sand dabs, mussels or clams; +entrees--sweetbreads with mushrooms, curry of lamb, calf's tongue, tripe +with peppers, tagliatini a l'Italienne, or boiled kidney with bacon; +vegetables--asparagus, string-beans and cauliflower; roast--spring lamb +with green peas, broiled chicken or broiled pig's feet; dessert--rhubarb +pie, ice cream and cake, apple sauce, stewed fruits, baked pear or baked +apple, mixed fruits; cheese of three varieties, and coffee to wind up +on. + +The proprietor doesn't cut out his portions with a pair of buttonhole +scissors, either, or sauce them with a medicine-dropperful of gravy. He +gives a big, full, satisfying helping, well cooked and well served. +There is some romance in the San Francisco cooking, too, if the +oldtimers who bemourn the old days only realized it. + +If this seeming officiousness on the part of a passing wayfarer may be +excused there is one more suggestion I should like to throw off for the +benefit of the promoters of the exposition. Living somewhere in +California is a man who should be looked up before the gates are opened, +and he should be retained at a salary and staked out in suitable +quarters as a special and added attraction. He is the most magnificent +fish-liar in the known world! I do not know his name--he was so busy +pouring fish stories down a party of us that he didn't take time to stop +and tell his name--but no great difficulty should be experienced in +finding him. There is only one of him alive--these world's wonders never +occur in pairs. That would cheapen them and make them commonplace. + +He swam into our ken--if a mixed metaphor may be pardoned--on a train +leaving Oakland for the East. We were sitting in the club car--half a +dozen or so of us--when he drifted along. At first look no one would +have suspected him of being so gifted a creature as he proved himself to +be. He was a round, short, tub-shaped man, with a button nose, and a +double chin that ran all the way round and lapped over at the back. But, +though his appearance was deceiving, anybody could tell with half an +eye that he excelled in extemporaneous conversation. Right off he began +shadow-boxing and sparring about, waiting for an opening. In a minute he +got it. + +The tall man with the long face and the stiff white pompadour, who +looked like a patent toothbrush, gave him his chance. The tall man +happened to look out of the car window and see in an inlet a fleet of +beached fishing boats, and he remarked on their picturesqueness. That +was the cue. + +"Speaking of fishing," said the button-nosed man, "I'll tell you people +something that'll maybe interest you. You may not believe it, either, me +being a stranger to you; but it's the Gospel truth or I wouldn't be +sitting here a-telling it. I reckon I've done more fishing in my day and +more different kinds of fishing than any man alive. I come originally +from a prime fishing state--Michigan--and I've lived in Colorado and +Montana and Oregon and all the other good fishing states out West. But, +take it from me, friends, California is the best fishing state there is. +Yes, sir; when it comes to fishing, old California lays it over 'em +all--she takes the rag right off the bush! I'm the one that oughter know +because I've fished her from end to end and crossways--sea fishing, +creek fishing, lake fishing and all. + +"Down at Catalina they'll tell you, if you ask 'em, that I'm the man +that ketched the biggest tuna that ever come out of that ocean. It took +me fourteen hours and forty-five minutes to land him, and during that +time he towed me and an eighteen-foot boat, and the fellow I had along +for boatman, over forty-four miles--I measured it afterward to be +sure--and the friction of the reel spinning round wore my line down till +it wasn't no thicker in places than a cobweb. But tunas ain't my regular +specialty--trouts and basses are my special favorites; and up in the +mountains is where I mostly do my fishing. + +"I'm just sort of hanging round now waiting for the snow to move out +so's I can go up there and start fishing. + +"Well, sirs, it's funny, ain't it, the way luck will run fishing? Oncet +when I was living up there I fished stiddy, day in and day out, for two +seasons and never got a bite that you could rightly call a bite. And +then all of a sudden one afternoon the luck switched and in exactly +forty-five minutes by the watch--by this here very watch I'm carrying +now in my pocket--I ketched seventy-two of them big old black basses out +of one hole; and they averaged five pounds apiece!" + +We looked at one another silently. A total of seventy-two five-pound +bass in three-quarters of an hour seemed a little too much to be taken +as a first dose from a strange practitioner. And it was hard to believe +they had all been basses; if only for the sake of variety there should +have been at least one barytone. We felt that we needed time for +reflection--and digestion. + +Evidently realizing this, one of our number undertook to throw himself +into the breach. As I recollect, this volunteer was the fat coffin +drummer from Des Moines who had the round, smooth face and the round, +bald head, and wore the fuzzy green hat with the bow at the back. I +think he wore the bow there purposely--it simplified matters so when you +were trying to decide which side of his head his face grew on. He heaved +a pensive sigh out of his system and remarked upon the clearness of the +air in these parts. + +"You're right there, mister," broke in the button-nosed man, snapping +him up instantly. "The air is tolerable clear here today; but you +oughter to see the air up in the mountains! Why, it's so clear up there +it would make this here hill-country air look like a fog. I remember +oncet I was browsing along a cliff up in that country, toting my +fishpole, and I happened to look over the bluff--just so--and down below +I saw a hole in the creek that was just crawling with them big +trouts--steel-head trouts and rainbow trouts. I could see the spots on +their sides and their fins waving, and their gills working up and down. + +"I figured out that it was fully a hundred feet down to the water and +the water would natchelly be tolerable deep; so I let all my line run +off the reel, a hundred and sixty feet of it; and I fished and fished +and fished--and didn't get a strike, let alone a nibble. Yet I could +look over and see all these hungry trouts down below looking up with +expectant looks in their eyes--I could see their eyes--and jumping round +regardless; and yet not a bite! So I changed bait--changed from live +bait to dead bait, and back again to live--and still there wasn't +nothing doing. So I says to myself: 'Something's wrong, sure! This +thing'll stand looking into.' + +[Illustration: IT'S A GREAT THING OUT THERE TO BE A NATIVE SON] + +"So I snoops round and finds a place where there's a sort of a sloping +place in the bluff; and I braces my pole in a rock and leaves it there; +and I climbs down--and then I sees what's the matter. It was that there +clear air that had fooled me! It was three hundred feet if it was an +inch down from the top of that there bluff to the creek, and the hole +was fully a hundred feet deep--maybe more; and away down at the plumb +bottom all them trouts was congregated in a circlelike, looking up +mighty greedy and longing at my bait, which was a live frog, dangling +two hundred and forty-odd feet up in the air. But, speaking of clear +air, that wasn't nothing at all compared to some other things I could +tell you about. Another time----" + +At this point I rose and escaped to the diner. When I got back at the +end of an hour the other survivors told me that, up to the time he got +off at Sacramento, the button-nosed man had been getting better and +better all the time. He certainly ought to be rounded up and put on +exhibition at the Fair to show those puny and feeble Eastern fish-liars +what the incomparable Western climate can produce. + +I almost forgot to mention San Francisco's chief product--Native Sons. A +Native Son is one who has acquired special merit by being born in the +state. You would think credit would be given to the subject's parents, +where it belongs; but, no--that is not the California way. It's a great +thing out there to be a Native Son. It counts in politics, and in +society, and at the clubs. + +And, after that, the next best thing is to be a Southerner, either by +birth or descent. People who have Southern blood in their veins are +very proud of it and can join a club on the strength of it; and some of +them do a lot of talking about it. The definition is rather +elastic--anybody whose ancestors worked on the Southern Pacific is +eligible, I think. + +Of course, there are a lot of real Southerners; but there are a whole +lot more who--so it seemed to me--are giving remarkably realistic +imitations of the type known in New York as the Professional Southerner. +San Francisco excels in Southerners--the regular kind and the self-made +kind both. + +I was out there too early in the year to meet the justly celebrated San +Francisco flea. He's a Native Son, too; but there isn't so much bragging +being done on his account. + + + + +_LOOKING FOR LO_ + +[Illustration] + +_Looking for Lo_ + + +IF it is your desire to observe the Red Indian of the Plains engaged in +his tribal sports and pastimes wait for the Wild West Show; there is +sure to be one coming to your town before the season is over. Or if you +are bloodthirsty by nature and yearn to see him prancing round upon the +warpath, destroying the hated paleface and strewing the soil with his +shredded fragments, restrain your longings until next fall and then +arrange to take in the football game between Carlisle and Princeton. +But, whatever you do, do not go journeying into the Far West in the hope +of finding him in great number upon his native heath, for the chances +are that you won't find him there in great number; and if you do he will +probably be a considerable disappointment to you; because, unless he is +paid for it, the red brother absolutely declines to be picturesque. + +I am reliably informed that he is still reasonably numerous in Oklahoma, +in North and South Dakota, and in Montana and Washington; but my +itinerary did not include those states. I did not see a live +Indian--that is to say, a live Indian recognizable as such--in Nevada or +in Colorado or in Utah, or in a four-hour run across one corner of +Wyoming. + +In upward of a thousand miles of travel through California I saw just +one Indian--a bronze youth of perhaps twenty summers and, I should say, +possibly half that many baths. He was wearing the scenario of a pair of +overalls and a straw hat in an advanced state of decrepitude, and he was +working in a truckpatch; if a native had not told me what he was I would +have passed him by for a sunburnt hired hand. + +I saw a few Indians in New Mexico and a few more in Arizona, but not a +great many at that; and these, as I found out later, were mainly engaged +to linger in the vicinity of stations and hotels along the line for the +purpose of adding a touch of color to the surroundings and incidentally +selling souvenirs to the tourists. + +Mind you, I'm not saying there are not plenty of Indians in those +states; but they mostly stay on their reservations and the reservations +unfortunately are not, as a rule, near the railroad stations. A traveler +going through the average small Southern town sees practically the +entire strength of the colored citizenry gathered at the depot and jumps +at the conclusion that the population is from ninety to ninety-five per +cent. black. In the West he sees maybe one little Indian settlement in a +stretch of five or six hundred miles, and he figures that the Indian is +practically an extinct species. + +Of course, though, he is not extinct. In these piping commercial days of +acute competition he has no time to be gallivanting down to the depot +every time a through train rolls in, especially as the depot is +frequently eighty or ninety miles distant from his domicile. He is +closely confined at home turning out souvenirs. It is a pity, too, that +he cannot spare more of his time for this simple and inexpensive +pleasure. In one week's study of the passing tourist breed he could see +enough funny sights and hear enough funny things--unintentionally funny +things--to keep his family entertained on many a long winter's evening +as they sit peacefully in the wigwam making knickknacks for the Eastern +trade. + +[Illustration: EACH NAVAJO SQUAW WEAVES ON AN AVERAGE NINE THOUSAND +BLANKETS A YEAR] + +No, sirree! Those Southwestern tribes are far from being +extinct--especially the Navajos. You can, in a way, approximate the +tribal strength of the Navajos by the number of Navajo blankets you see. +From Colorado to the Coast the Navajo blanket carpets the earth. I'll +bet any amount within reason that in six weeks' time I saw ten million +Navajo blankets if I saw one. As for other things--bows and arrows, for +example--well, I do not wish to exaggerate; but had I bought all the +wooden bows and arrows that were offered to me I could take them and +build a rustic footbridge across the Delaware River at Trenton, with a +neat handrail all the way over. Taking the figures of the last census as +a working basis I calculate that each Navajo squaw weaves, on an +average, nine thousand blankets a year; and while she is so engaged her +husband, the metal worker of the establishment, is producing a couple of +tons of silver bracelets set with turquoises. For prolixity of output I +know of no female in the entire animal kingdom that can compare with the +Navajo squaw--unless it is the lady Potomac shad. + +Right here I wish to claim one proud distinction: I went from the +Atlantic to the Pacific and back again--and I did not buy a single +blanket! Since the return of the Lewis & Clark expedition I am probably +the only white person who has ever done this. Goodness knows the call +was strong enough and the opportunities abundant enough; blankets were +available for my inspection at every railroad station, at every hotel, +and at every one of two hundred thousand souvenir stores that I +encountered--but I was under orders from headquarters. + +As we were bidding farewell to our family before starting West, our wife +said to us in firm, decided accents: "I have already picked out a place +where we can hide the Cheyenne war-bonnet. We can get rid of the +moccasins and the stone hatchets and the beadwork breastplates by +storing them in a trunk up in the attic. But do not bring a Navajo +blanket back to this already crowded establishment!" So we restrained +ourselves. But it was a hard struggle and took a heroic effort. + +I recall one blanket, done in gray and black and red and white, and +decorated with the figures of the Thunder Bird and the Swastika, the +Rising Sun and the Jig Saw, and other Indian signs, symbols and emblems. +It was with the utmost difficulty that I wrenched myself away from the +vicinity of this treasure. And then, when I got back home, feeling proud +as Punch over having withstood temptation in all its forms, almost the +first words I heard, spoken in tones of deep disappointment, were these: +"Well, why didn't you bring a Navajo blanket for the den? You know we've +always wanted one!" Wasn't that just like a woman? + +Though I refrained from seeking bargains in the blankets of the +aborigine, I sought diligently enough for the aborigine himself. I had +my first glimpse of him in Northern New Mexico just after we had come +down out of Colorado. Accompanied by his lady, he was languidly reposing +on the platform in front of a depot, with his wares tastefully arranged +at his feet. As a concession to the acquired ideals of the Eastern +visitor he had a red sofa tidy draped round his shoulders, and there was +a tired-looking hen-feather caught negligently in his back hair; and his +squaw displayed ornamented leggings below the hems of her simple calico +walking skirt. But these adornments, I gathered, constituted the calling +costume, so to speak. + +When at home in his village the universal garment of the Pueblo male is +the black sateen shirt of commerce. He puts it on and wears it until it +is taken up by absorption, and then it is time to put on another. These +shirts do not require washing; but, among the best Pueblo families, I +understand it is customary--once in so often--to have them searched. +And thus is the wild life of the West kept down. + +Farther along the line, in Arizona, we met the Hopi and the +Navajo--delegations from both of these tribes having been imported from +the reservations to give an added touch of picturesqueness to the +principal hotel of the Grand Canon. The Hopi, who excels at snake +dancing and pottery work, is a mannerly little chap; and his daughter, +with her hair done up in elaborate whorl effects in fancied imitation of +the squash blossom--the squash being the Hopi emblem of purity--is a +decidedly attractive feature of the landscape. + +The Hopi women are industrious little bodies, clever at basket +weaving--and the men work, too, when not engaged in attending lodge; for +the Hopis are the ritualists of the Southwest, and every Hopi is a +confirmed joiner. Their secret societies exist to-day, uncorrupted and +unchanged, just as they have survived for hundreds and perhaps thousands +of years. In the Hopi House at Grand Canon there is a reproduction of a +kiva or underground temple. It isn't underground--it is located +upstairs; but in all other regards it is supposed to conform exactly to +one of the real ceremonial chambers of the Hopis. The dried-mud walls +are covered thickly with symbolic devices, painted on; and there is an +altar tricked out with totems of the Powamu clan, one of the biggest of +these societies. + +Just in front of the altar, with its wooden figures of the War God, the +God of Growing Things, and the God of Thunder, is a sand painting set in +the floor like a mosaic. When one of the clans is getting ready for a +service the official high priest or medicine man of that particular clan +sprinkles clean brown sand upon the flat earth before the altar and upon +this foundation, by trickling between his thumb and forefinger tiny +streams of sands of other colors, he makes the mystic figures that he +worships. After the rites are over he obliterates the design with his +hand, leaving the space bare for the next clan. + +In the Hopi House at Grand Canon a sand painting sacred to the Antelope +clan is preserved under glass for the benefit of visitors. The manager +of the establishment, a Mr. Smith, who has spent most of his life among +the tribes of Arizona, told us a story about this. + +Two years ago this summer, a party of Mystic Shriners on an excursion +visited the canyon. Mr. Smith chaperoned one group of them on their tour +through the Hopi House. In the sand painting of the kiva they seemed to +find something that particularly interested them. They put their heads +together, talking in undertones and pointing--so Smith said--first at +one design and then at another. An old Hopi buck, a priest of the +Antelope clan, was lounging in the low doorway watching them. What the +Shriners said to one another could have had no significance for him, +even admitting that he heard them, for he did not understand a word of +English; but suddenly he reached forth a withered hand and plucked Smith +by the sleeve. I am letting Smith tell the rest of the tale just as he +told it to us: + +"The Hopi pointed to one of the Shriners, an elderly man who came, I +think, from somewhere in Illinois, and in his own tongue he said to me: +'That man with the white hair is a Hopi--and he is a member of my clan!' +I said to him: 'You speak foolishness--that man comes from the East and +never until to-day saw a Hopi in his whole life!' The medicine man +showed more excitement than I ever saw an Indian show. + +"'You are lying to me!' he said. 'That white-haired man is a Hopi, or +else his people long ago were Hopis.' I laughed at him and that ruffled +his dignity and he turned away, and I couldn't get another word out of +him. + +"As the Shriners were passing out I halted the white-haired man and said +to him: 'The Hopi medicine man insists that you are a Hopi and that you +know something about his clan.' 'Well,' he said, 'I'm no Hopi; but I +think I do know something about some of the things he seems to revere. +Where is this medicine man?' + +"I pointed to where the old Indian was squatted in a corner, sulking; he +walked right over to him and motioned to him, and the Hopi got up and +they went into the kiva together. I do not know what passed between +them--certainly no words passed--but in about ten minutes the Shriner +came out, and he had a puzzled look on his face. + +"'I've just had the most wonderful experience,' he said to me, 'that +I've ever had in my whole life. Of course that Indian isn't a Mason, but +in a corrupted form he knows something about Masonry; and where he +learned it I can't guess. Why, there are lodges in this country where I +actually believe he could work his way in.'" + +Not being either a Mason or a Hopi, I cannot undertake to vouch for the +story or to contradict it; but Smith has the reputation of being a +truthful man. + +The Navajos are the aristocrats of the Southwestern country. They are +dignified, cleanly in their personal habits, and orderly; and they are +wonderful artisans. In addition to being wonderful weavers and excellent +silversmiths, they shine at agriculture and at stock raising and sheep +raising. They are born horse-traders, too, and at driving a bargain it +is said a buck Navajo can spot a Scotchman five balls any time and beat +him out; but they have the name of being absolutely honest and +absolutely truthful. + +This same Mr. Smith, who has lived several years on the Navajo +reservation and who is an adopted member of the tribe, took several of +us to pay a formal call upon a Navajo subchief, who spends the tourist +season at the Grand Canon. The old chap, long-haired and the color of a +prime smoke-cured ham, received us with perfect courtesy into his winter +residence, the same being a circular hut contrived by overlapping +timbers together in a kind of basket design and then coating the logs +inside and out with adobe clay. + +The place was clean and free from all unpleasant odors. In the middle of +the floor a fire burned, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. +At one side was the primitive forge, where the head of the house worked +in metals; and against the far wall his squaw was hunkered down, +weaving a blanket on her wooden loom. A couple of his young offspring +were playing about, dressed simply in their little negligee-strings. The +mud walls were hung with completed blankets. Long, stringy strips of +dried beef and mutton--the national dishes of the tribe--were dangling +from cross-pieces overhead; and on a rug upon the earthen floor lay a +glittering pile of bracelets and brooches that had been made by the old +man out of Mexican dollars. When we came away, after spending fifteen +minutes or so as their guests, the whole family came with us; but the +old man tarried a minute to fasten a small brass padlock through a hasp +upon his wattled wooden door. + +"Up on the reservation, away from the railroads and the towns, there are +no locks upon the doors," Smith said. + +"Why is that?" I asked. + +Smith grinned. "I'll tell the old man what you said and let him answer." + +He clucked in guttural monosyllables to the chief, and the chief clucked +back briefly, meanwhile eyeing me with a whimsical squint out of his +puckered old eyes. And then Smith translated: + +"Why should we lock our doors in the place where we live? There are no +white men there!" + +I will confess that as a representative of the dominant Caucasian stock +I had, for the moment, no apt reply ready. Later I thought of a very +fitting retort, which undoubtedly would have flattened that impertinent +Indian as flat as a flounder; unfortunately, though, it only came to me +after several days of study, and by that time I was upward of a thousand +miles away from him. But I am saving it to use on him the next time I go +back to the Grand Canon. No mere Indian can slander our race, even if he +is telling the truth--not while I'm around! + +Down in Southern California I rather figured on finding a large swarm of +Mission Indians clustering about every Mission; but, alas! they weren't +there, either. We saw a few worshipers and plenty of tourists, but no +Indians--at least, I didn't see any personally. There is something +wonderfully impressive about a first trip to any one of those old gray +churches; everything about it is eloquent with memories of that older +civilization which this Western country knew long before the Celt and +the Anglo-Saxon breeds came over the Divide and down the Pacific Slope, +filled with their lust for gold and lands, craving ever more power and +more territory over which to float the Stars and Stripes. + +The vanished day of the Spaniard now lives only within the walls of the +early Missions, but it invests them with that added veneration which +attaches to whatever is old and traditional and historic. We haven't a +great deal that is very old in our own country; maybe that explains why +we fuss over it so when we come across it in Europe. + +[Illustration: AS SHE LEVELED THE LENS A YELL WENT UP FROM SOMEWHERE] + +There is one Mission which in itself, it seemed to me, is almost worth a +trip clear across the continent to see--the one at Santa Barbara. It is +up the side of a gentle foothill, with the mountains of the Coast Range +behind it. Down below the roofs and spires of a brisk little city +show through green clumpage, and still farther beyond the blue waters of +the Pacific may be seen. + +Parts of this Mission are comparatively new; there are retouchings and +restorations that date back only sixty or seventy years, but most of it +speaks to you of an earlier century than this and an earlier race than +the one that now peoples the land. You pass through walls of solid +masonry that are sixteen feet thick and pierced by narrow passages; you +climb winding stairs to a squat tower where sundry cracked brazen bells, +the gifts of Spanish gentlemen who died a hundred years ago perhaps, +swing by withes of ancient rawhide from great, worm-gnawed, hand-riven +beams; you walk through the Mission burying-ground, past crumbly old +family vaults with half-obliterated names and titles and dates upon +their ovenlike fronts, and you wander at will among the sunken +individual graves under the palms and pepper trees. + +Most convincing of all to me were the stone-flagged steps at the door of +the church itself, for they are all worn down like the teeth of an old +horse--in places they are almost worn in two. Better than any guidebook +patter of facts and figures--better than the bells and the graves and +the hand-made beams--these steps convey to the mind a sense of age. + +You stand and look at them, and you see there the tally of vanished +generations--the heavy boot of the conquistador; the sandaled foot of +the old padre; the high heel of a dainty Spanish-born lady; the bare, +horny sole of the Indian convert--each of them taking its tiny toll out +of stone and mortar--each of them wearing away its infinitesimal +mite--until through years and years the firm stone was scored away and +channeled out and left at it is now, with curves in it and deep hollows. + +Given a dime's worth of imagination to start on, almost any one could +people that spot with the dead-and-gone figures of that shadowy past; +could forget the trolley cars curving right up to the walls; the +electric lights strung in globular festoons along the ancient ceilings +of the porticoes; the roofs of the new, shiny modern bungalows dotting +the gentle slopes below--could forget even that the brown-cowled, +rope-girthed father who served as guide spoke with a strong German +accent; could almost forgive the impious driver of the rig that brought +one here for referring to this place as the Mish. But be sure there +would be one thing to bring you hurtling back again to earth, no matter +how far aloft your fancy soared--and that would be the ever-present +souvenir-collecting tourist, to whom no shrine is holy and no memory is +sacred. + +There is no charge for admission to the Mission. All comers, regardless +of breed or creed, are welcomed; and on constant duty is a gentle-voiced +priest, ready to lead the way to the inner rooms where priceless relics +of the day when the Spaniards first came to California are displayed; +and into the church itself, with its candles burning before the high +altar and the quaint old holy pictures ranged thick upon the walls; and +through the burying-ground--and to all the rest of it; and for this +service there is nothing to pay. On departing the visitor, if he +chooses, may leave a coin behind; but he doesn't have to--it isn't +compulsory. + +There is a kind of traveler who repays this hospitality by defiling the +walls with his inconsequential name, scratched in or scrawled on, and by +toting away as a souvenir whatever portable object he can confiscate +when nobody is looking. Up in the bell tower the masonry is all defaced +and pocked where these vandals have dug at it with pocketknives; and as +we were coming away, one of them--a typical specimen--showed me with +deep pride half of a brick pouched in his coat pocket. It seemed that +while the priest's back was turned he had pried it loose from the +frilled ornamentation of a vault in the burying-ground at the cost only +of his self-respect--admitting that he had any of that commodity in +stock--and a broken thumbnail. It was, indeed, a priceless treasure and +he valued it accordingly. And yet, at a distance of ten feet in an +ordinary light, no one not in the secret could have said offhand whether +that half-brick came out of a Mission tomb in California or a +smokehouse in Arkansas. + +We didn't see any Indians when we ran down into Mexico. However, we only +ran into Mexico for a distance of a mile and a half below the California +state boundary, and maybe that had something to do with it. By +automobile we rode from San Diego over to the town of Tia Juana, +signifying, in our tongue, Aunt Jane. Ramona, heroine of Helen Hunt +Jackson's famous novel, had an aunt called Jane. I guess they had a +grudge against the lady; they named this town after her. + +Selling souvenirs to tourists, who come daily on sightseeing coaches +from Coronado Beach and San Diego, is the principal pastime of the +natives of Tia Juana. Weekdays they do this; and sometimes on a Sunday +afternoon they have a bullfight in their little bullring. On such an +occasion the bullfighting outfit is specially imported from one of the +larger towns farther inland. Sometimes the whole troupe comes from +Juarez and puts on a regular metropolitan production, with the original +all-star cast. There is the gallant performer known as the armadilla, +who teases the bull to desperation by waving a red shawl at him; the no +less daring parabola, sticking little barbed boleros in the bull's +withers; and, last of all, the intrepid mantilla, who calmly meets the +final rush of the infuriated beast and, with one unerring thrust of his +trusty sword, delivers the porte-cochere, or fatal stroke, just behind +the left shoulder-blade, while all about the assembled peons and +pianolas rend the ambient air with their delighted cry: _"Hoi Polloi! +Hoi Polloi! Dolce far niente!"_ + +Isn't it remarkable how readily the seasoned tourist masters the +difficulties of a foreign language? Before I had been in Mexico an hour +I had picked up the intricate phraseology of the bullfight; and I was +glad afterward that I took the trouble to get it all down in my mind +correctly, because such knowledge always comes in handy. You can use it +with effect in company--it stamps you as a person of culture and +travel--and it impresses other people; but then I always could pick up +foreign languages easily. I do not wish to boast--but with me it amounts +to a positive gift. + +It was a weekday when we visited Tia Juana, and so there was no +bullfight going on; in fact, there didn't seem to be much of anything +going on. Once in a while a Spigotty lady would pass, closely followed +by a couple of little Spigots, and occasionally the postmaster would +wake up long enough to accept a sheaf of postcards from a tourist and +then go right back to sleep again. We had sampled the tamales of the +country, finding them only slightly inferior to the same article as sold +in Kansas City, Kansas; and we had drifted--three of us--into a Mexican +cafe. It was about ten feet square and was hung with chromos furnished +by generous Milwaukee brewers and other decorations familiar to all who +have ever visited a crossroads bar-room on our own side of the line. +Bottled beer appeared to be the one best bet in the drinking line, and +the safest one, too; but somehow I hated--over here upon the soil of +another country--to be calling for the domestic brews of our own St. +Louis! Personally I desired to conform my thirst to the customs of the +country--only I didn't know what to ask for. I had learned the +bullfighting language, but I hadn't progressed very far beyond that +point. While I was deliberating a Mexican came in and said something in +Spanish to the barkeeper and the barkeeper got a bottle of a clear, +almost colorless fluid out from under the counter and poured him a +sherry glassful of it. So then, by means of a gesture that is universal +and is understood in all climes, I indicated to the barkeeper that I +would take a little of the same. + +The moment, though, that I had swallowed it I realized I had been too +hasty. It was mescal--an explosive in liquid form that is brewed or +stilled or steeped, or something, from the juices of a certain variety +of cactus, according to a favorite family prescription used by Old Nick +several centuries ago when he was residing in this section. For its size +and complexion I know of nothing that is worthy to be mentioned in the +same breath with mescal, unless it is the bald-faced hornet of the Sunny +South. It goes down easily enough--that is not the trouble--but as soon +as it gets down you have the sensation of having swallowed a comet. + +As I said before, I didn't see any Indians in Old Mexico, but if I had +taken one more swig of the national beverage I am satisfied that not +only would I have seen a great number of them, but, with slight +encouragement, might have been one myself. For the purpose of assuaging +the human thirst I would say that it is a mistake on the part of a +novice to drink mescal--he should begin by swallowing a lighted kerosene +lamp for practice and work up gradually; but the experience was +illuminating as tending to make me understand why the Mexicans are so +prone to revolutions. A Mexican takes a drink of mescal before +breakfast, on an empty stomach, and then he begins to revolute round +regardless. + +On leaving Tia Juana we stopped to view the fort, which was the +principal attraction of the place. It was located in the outskirts just +back of the cluster of adobe houses and frame shacks that made up the +town. The fort proper consisted of a mud wall about three feet high, +inclosing perhaps half an acre of bare clayey soil. Outside the wall +was a moat, upward of a foot deep, and inside was a barrack. This +barrack--I avoid using the plural purposely--was a wooden shanty that +had been whitewashed once, but had practically recovered from it since; +and its walls were pierced--for artillery-fire, no doubt--with two +windows, to the frames of which a few fragments of broken glass still +adhered. Overhead the flag of the republic was flying; and every +half-minute, so it seemed to us, a drum would beat and a bugle would +blow and the garrison would turn out, looking--except for their +guns--very much like a squad of district-telegraph messengers. They +would evolute across the parade ground a bit and then retire to quarters +until the next call to arms should sound. + +We could not get close enough to ascertain what all the excitement was +about, because they would not let us. We were not allowed to venture +within fifty yards of the outer breastworks, or kneeworks; and even +then, so the village authorities warned us, we must keep moving. A woman +camera fiend from Coronado was along, and she unlimbered her favorite +instrument with the idea of taking a few snapshots of this martial +scene. + +As she leveled the lens a yell went up from somewhere, and out of the +barrack and over the wall came skipping a little officer, leaving a +trail of inflammatory Spanish behind him in a way to remind you of the +fireman cleaning out the firebox of the Through Limited. He was not much +over five feet tall and his shabby little uniform needed the attention +of the dry cleanser, but he carried a sword and two pistols, and wore a +brass gorget at his throat, a pair of huge epaulets and a belt; and he +had gold braid and brass buttons spangled all over his sleeves and the +front of his coat, and a pair of jingling spurs were upon his heels. +There was a long feather in his cap, too--and altogether, for his size, +he was most impressive to behold. He charged right up to the abashed +camera lady and, through an interpreter, explained to her that it was +strictly against the rules to permit a citizen of a foreign power to +make any pictures of the fortifications whatsoever. He appeared to nurse +a horrid fear that the secret of the fortifications might become known +above the line, and that some day, armed with this information, the Boy +Scouts or a Young Ladies' High School might swoop down and capture the +whole works. He explained to the lady, that, much as he regretted it, if +she persisted in her suspicious and spylike conduct, he would have to +smash her camera for her. So she desisted. + +The little officer and his merry men had ample reason for being a mite +nervous just then. Their country was in the midst of its spring +revolution. The Madero family had just been thinned out pretty +extensively, and it was not certain yet whether the Diaz faction or the +Huerta faction, or some other faction, would come out on top. Besides, +these gallant guardians of the frontier were a long way from +headquarters and in no position to figure out in advance which way the +national cat would jump next. All they knew was that she was jumping. + +[Illustration: AS THE OCCUPANTS SPILLED SPRAWLINGLY THROUGH THE GAP, A +FRONT TIRE EXPLODED WITH A LOUD REPORT] + +Every morning, so we heard, they were taking a vote to decide whether +they would be Federalists that day or Liberalists, or what not; and the +vote was invested with a good deal of personal interest, too, because +there was no telling when a superior force might arrive from the +interior; and if they had happened to vote wrong that day there was +always the prospect of their being backed up against a wall, with +nothing to look at except a firing squad and a row of newmade graves. + +We were told that one morning, about three or four weeks before the date +of our visit, the garrison had been in the barrack casting their usual +ballot. They were strong Huertaists that morning--it was Viva Huerta! +all the way. Just about the time the vote was being announced a couple +of visiting Americans in an automobile came down the road flanking the +fort. There had been a rain and the road was slippery with red mud. As +the driver took the turn at the corner his wheels began skidding and he +lost control. The car skewed off at a tangent, hurdled the moat, and +tore a hole in the mud wall; and, as the occupants spilled sprawlingly +through the gap, a front tire exploded with a loud report. The garrison +took just one look out the front door, jumped to the conclusion that the +Villa crowd had arrived and were shooting automobiles at them, and +unanimously adjourned by the back way into the woods. Some of them did +not get back until the shades of night had descended upon the troubled +land. + +Such is military life in our sister republic in times of war, and yet +they sometimes have a very realistic imitation of the real thing over +there. Revolution before last there were two separate engagements in +this little town of Tia Juana. A lot of belligerents were killed and a +good many more were wounded. + +In an iron letter box in front of the post-office we saw a round hole +where a steel-jacketed bullet had passed through after first passing +through a prominent citizen. We did not see this citizen. It became +necessary to bury him shortly after the occurrence referred to. + +In vain I sought the red brother on my saunterings through California. +In San Francisco I once thought I had him treed. On Pacific Street, a +block ahead of me, I saw a group of pedestrians, wrapped in loose +flowing garments of many colors. Even at that distance I could make out +that they were dark-skinned and had long black hair. I said to myself: +"It is probable that these persons are connected with Doctor Somebody's +Medicine Show; but I don't care if they are. They are Indians--more +Indians than I have seen in one crowd at one time since Buffalo Bill was +at Madison Square Garden last spring. I shall look them over." + +So I ran and caught up with them--but they were not Indians. They were +genuine Egyptian acrobats, connected with a traveling carnival company. +When Moses transmitted the divine command to the Children of Israel that +they should spoil the Egyptians, the Children of Israel certainly did a +mighty thorough job of it. That was several thousand years ago and those +Egyptians I saw were still spoiled. I noticed it as soon as I got close +to them. + +In Salt Lake City I saw half a dozen Indians, but in a preserved form +only. They were on display in a museum devoted to relics of the early +days. In my opinion Indians do not make very good preserves, especially +when they have been in stock a long time and have become shopworn, as +was the case with these goods. Personally, I would not care to invest. +Besides, there was no telling how old they were. They had been dug out, +mummified, from the cliff-dwellers' ruins in the southern part of the +state, along with their household goods, their domestic utensils, their +weapons of war and their ornaments; and there they were laid out in +glass cases for modern eyes to see. There were plenty of other +interesting exhibits in this museum, including several of Brigham +Young's suits of clothes. For a man busied with statecraft and military +affairs and domestic matters, Brigham Young must have changed clothes +pretty often. I couldn't keep from wondering how a man with a family +like his was found the time for it. + +To my mind the most interesting relic in the whole collection was the +spry octogenarian who acted as guide and showed us through the +place--for he was one of the few living links between the Old West and +the New. As a boy-convert to Mormonism he came across the desert with +the second expedition that fled westward from Gentile persecution after +Brigham Young had blazed the trail. He was a pony express rider in the +days of the overland mail service. He was also an Indian fighter--one of +the trophies he showed was a scalp of his own raising practically, he +having been present when it was raised by a friendly Indian scout from +the head of the hostile who originally owned it--and he had lived in +Salt Lake City when it was a collection of log shanties within the walls +of a wooden stockade. And now here he was, a man away up in his +eighties, but still brisk and bright, piloting tourists about the upper +floor of a modern skyscraper. + +We visited the museum after we had inspected the Mormon Tabernacle and +had looked at the Mormon Temple--from the outside--and had seen the +Beehive and the Lion House and the Eagle Gate and the painfully ornate +mansion where Brigham Young kept his favorite wife, Amelia. The +Tabernacle is famous the world over for its choir, its organ and its +acoustics--particularly its acoustics. The guide, who is a Mormon elder +detailed for that purpose, escorts you into the balcony, away up under +the domed wooden roof; and as you wait there, listening, another elder, +standing upon a platform two hundred feet away, drops an ordinary pin +upon the floor--and you can distinctly hear it fall. At first you are +puzzled to decide exactly what it sounds like; but after a while the +correct solution comes to you--it sounds exactly like a pin falling. +Next to the Whispering Gallery in the Capitol at Washington, I don't +know of a worse place to tell your secrets to a friend than the Mormon +Tabernacle. You might as well tell them to a woman and be done with it! + +In Salt Lake City I had rather counted upon seeing a Mormon out walking +with three or four of his wives--all at one time. I felt that this would +be a distinct novelty to a person from New York, where the only show +one enjoys along this line is the sight of a chap walking with three or +four other men's wives--one at a time. But here, as in my quest for the +Indian, I was disappointed some more. Once I thought I was about to +score. I was standing in front of the Zion Cooperative Mercantile +Establishment, which is a big department store owned by the Church, but +having all the latest improvements, including bargain counters and +special salesdays. Out of the door came an elderly gentleman attired in +much broadcloth and many whiskers, and behind him trailed half a dozen +soberly dressed women of assorted ages. + +Filled with hope, I fell in behind the procession and followed it across +to the hotel. There I learned the disappointing truth. The broadclothed +person was not a Mormon at all. + +He was a country bank president from somewhere back East and the women +of his party were Ohio school-teachers. Anywhere except in Utah I doubt +if he could have fooled me, either, for he had the kind of whiskers +that go with the banking profession. For some reason whiskers are +associated with the practice of banking all over this country; hallowed +by custom, they have come to stand for financial responsibility. A New +York banker wears those little jib-boom whiskers on the sides of his +head and sometimes a pennon on his chin, whereas a country banker +usually has a full-rigged face. This man's whiskers were of the old +square barkentine cut. I should have known who he was by his sailing +gear. + +And so, disappointed in my dreams of seeing Indians on the hoof and +Mormon households taking the air in family groups, I left Salt Lake +City, with its fine wide streets and its handsome business district and +its pure air and its background of snow-topped mountains, and started on +the long homebound hike. It was late in the afternoon. We had quit Utah, +with its flat plains, its garden spots reclaimed from the desert, and +its endless succession of trim red-brick farmhouses, which seem to be +the universal dwelling-places of the prosperous Mormon farmer. + +We had departed from the old trail that Mark Twain crawled over in a +stage-coach and afterward wrote about in his immortal Roughing It. The +Limited, traveling forty-odd miles an hour, was skipping through the +lower part of Wyoming before turning southward into Colorado. We were in +the midst of an expanse of desolation and emptiness, fifteen miles from +anywhere, and I was sitting on the observation platform of the rear car, +watching how the shafts of the setting sun made the colors shift and +deepen in the canyons and upon the sides of the tall red mesas, when I +became aware that the train was slowing down. + +Through the car came the conductor, with a happy expression upon his +face. Behind him was a pleased-looking flagman leading by the arm a +ragged tramp who had been caught, up forward somewhere, stealing a free +ride. + +The tramp was not resisting exactly, but at every step he said: + +"You can't put me off the train between stations! It's the law that you +can't put me off the train between stations!" + +Neither the conductor nor the flagman said a word in answer. As the +conductor reached up and jerked the bellcord the tramp, in the tone and +manner of one who advances an absolutely unanswerable argument, said: + +"You know, don't you, you can't put me off the train between stations?" + +The train halted. The conductor unfastened a tail-gate in the +guard-rail, and the flagman dropped his prisoner out through the +opening. As the tramp flopped off into space I caught this remark: + +"You can't put me off the train between stations." + +The conductor tugged another signal on the bellcord, and the wheels +began to turn faster and faster. The tramp picked himself up from +between the rails. He brushed some adhering particles of roadbed off +himself and, facing us, made a megaphone of his hands and sent a message +after our diminishing shapes. By straining my ears I caught his words. +He spoke as follows: + +"You can't put me off the train between stations!" + +In my whole life I never saw a man who was so hard to convince of a +thing as that tramp was. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Note: + +Minor spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation errors have been corrected. +For this text version, the word canon (with a tilde over the first n) has +been changed to canyon. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing it De Luxe, by Irvin S. 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