hree times by a distant noise, which I have
since been told was the growling of grizzly bears, that abounded in
that vicinity. On the whole, we passed a comfortable night, and rose at
sunrise feeling perfectly refreshed and well. In less than an hour we
were eating breakfast at the Pleasant Valley Rancho, which we easily
discovered by daylight.

Here they informed us that "we had escaped a great marcy," as old Jim
used to say in relating his successful run from a wolf, inasmuch as the
grizzlies had not devoured us during the night! But, seriously, dear
M., my heart thrills with gratitude to the Father for his tender care
of us during that journey, which, view it as lightly as we may, was
certainly attended with _some_ danger.

Notwithstanding we had endured so much fatigue, I felt as well as ever
I did, and after breakfast insisted upon pursuing our journey, although
F. anxiously advised me to defer it until next day. But imagine the
horror, the _creme de la creme_ of borosity, of remaining for twelve
mortal hours of wakefulness in a filthy, uncomfortable, flea-haunted
shanty, without books or papers, when Rich Bar--easily attainable
before night, through the loveliest scenery, shining in the yellow
splendor of an autumnal morn--lay before us! _I_ had no idea of any
such absurd self-immolation. So we again started on our strange,
eventful journey.

I wish I could give you some faint idea of the majestic solitudes
through which we passed,--where the pine-trees rise so grandly in their
awful height, that they seem to look into heaven itself. Hardly a
living thing disturbed this solemnly beautiful wilderness. Now and then
a tiny lizard glanced in and out among the mossy roots of the old
trees, or a golden butterfly flitted languidly from blossom to blossom.
Sometimes a saucy little squirrel would gleam along the somber trunk of
some ancient oak, or a bevy of quail, with their pretty tufted heads
and short, quick tread, would trip athwart our path. Two or three
times, in the radiant distance, we descried a stately deer, which,
framed in by embowering leaves, and motionless as a tableau, gazed at
us for a moment with its large, limpid eyes, and then bounded away with
the speed of light into the evergreen depths of those glorious old
woods.

Sometimes we were compelled to cross broad plains, acres in extent,
called chaparrals, covered with low shrubs, which, leafless and
barkless, stand like vegetable skeletons along the