in the heavy, lumbering
"mountain wagon" which had taken the place of the smart Concord coach
that he had left at the last station. The scenery, too, had changed; the
four horses threaded their way through rocky defiles of stunted larches
and hardy "brush," with here and there open patches of shrunken snow.
Yet at the edge of declivities he could still see through the rolled-up
leather curtains the valley below bathed in autumn, the glistening
rivers half spent with the long summer drought, and the green slopes
rolling upward into crest after crest of ascending pines. At times a
drifting haze, always imperceptible from below, veiled the view; a chill
wind blew through the vehicle, and made the steel sledge-runners that
hung beneath the wagon, ready to be shipped under the useless wheels,
an ominous provision. A few rude "stations," half blacksmith shops, half
grocery, marked the deserted but wellworn road; along, narrow "packer's"
wagon, or a tortuous file of Chinamen carrying mysterious bundles
depending from bamboo poles, was their rare and only company. The rough
sheepskin jackets which these men wore over their characteristic blue
blouses and their heavy leggings were a new revelation to Masterton,
accustomed to the thinly clad coolie of the mines. They seemed a
distinct race.

"I never knew those chaps get so high up, but they seem to understand
the cold," he remarked.

The driver looked up, and ejaculated his disgust and his tobacco juice
at the same moment.

"I reckon they're everywhar in Californy whar you want 'em and whar you
don't; you take my word for it, afore long Californy will hev to reckon
that she ginerally DON'T want 'em, ef a white man has to live here. With
a race tied up together in a language ye can't understand, ways that no
feller knows,--from their prayin' to devils, swappin' their wives, and
havin' their bones sent back to Chiny,--wot are ye goin' to do, and
where are ye? Wot are ye goin' to make outer men that look so much alike
ye can't tell 'em apart; that think alike and act alike, and never in
ways that ye kin catch on to! Fellers knotted together in some underhand
secret way o' communicatin' with each other, so that ef ye kick a
Chinaman up here on the Summit, another Chinaman will squeal in the
valley! And the way they do it just gets me! Look yer! I'll tell ye
somethin' that happened, that's gospel truth! Some of the boys that
reckoned to hev some fun with the Chinee gang over at Ce