at walking began to be painful.
While looking for a camping ground among the boulder beds of the canyon,
I came upon a strange, dark man of doubtful parentage. He kindly invited
me to camp with him, and led me to his little hut. All my conjectures as
to his nationality failed, and no wonder, since his father was Irish and
mother Spanish, a mixture not often met even in California. He happened
to be out of candles, so we sat in the dark while he gave me a sketch of
his life, which was exceedingly picturesque. Then he showed me his plans
for the future. He was going to settle among these canyon boulders, and
make money, and marry a Spanish woman. People mine for irrigating water
along the foothills as for gold. He is now driving a prospecting tunnel
into a spur of the mountains back of his cabin. "My prospect is good,"
he said, "and if I strike a strong flow, I shall soon be worth five or
ten thousand dollars. That flat out there," he continued, referring to a
small, irregular patch of gravelly detritus that had been sorted out and
deposited by Eaton Creek during some flood season, "is large enough for
a nice orange grove, and, after watering my own trees, I can sell water
down the valley; and then the hillside back of the cabin will do for
vines, and I can keep bees, for the white sage and black sage up the
mountains is full of honey. You see, I've got a good thing." All this
prospective affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked flood-bed of Eaton
Creek! Most home-seekers would as soon think of settling on the summit
of San Antonio.

Half an hour's easy rambling up the canyon brought me to the foot of
"The Fall," famous throughout the valley settlements as the finest yet
discovered in the range. It is a charming little thing, with a voice
sweet as a songbird's, leaping some thirty-five or forty feet into a
round, mirror pool. The cliff back of it and on both sides is completely
covered with thick, furry mosses, and the white fall shines against the
green like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Here come the Gabriel
lads and lassies from the commonplace orange groves, to make love and
gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in the cool pool. They
are fortunate in finding so fresh a retreat so near their homes. It is
the Yosemite of San Gabriel. The walls, though not of the true Yosemite
type either in form or sculpture, rise to a height of nearly two
thousand feet. Ferns are abundant on all the rocks within reach