. When one
considers that pathos and tragedy, perhaps even more than humor, pervade
his stories, that was not surprising.

I had but recently arrived from England--a mere lad. California was
still the land of gold and romance; the glamour with which Bret Harte
surrounded both, that bids fair to be immortal, held me enthralled.
Angel's, Rough and Ready, Sandy Bar, Poker Flat, Placerville, Tuolumne
and old Sonora represented to me enchanted ground. Fate and life's
vicissitudes prevented, except in imagination, a knowledge of the Sierra
foot-hill counties; but in the back of my head all these years had
persisted a determination to, at some time, visit a region close to the
heart of every old Californian, and what better way than on foot?

In spite of Pullman cars and automobiles--or, rather, perhaps on account
of them--the only way to see a country, to get into touch with Nature
and meet the inhabitants on the dead level of equality and human
sympathy, is to use Nature's method of locomotion. Equipped with a stout
stick--with a view to dogs--a folding kodak camera, and your "goods
and chattels" slung in a haversack across your shoulders, you feel
independent of timecards and "routes;" and sally forth into the world
with the philosophical determination to take things as they come; keyed
to a pleasurable pitch of excitement by the knowledge that "Adventure"
walks with you hand-in-hand, and that the "humors of the road" are yours
for the seeing and understanding.

Chapter II

Inception of the Tramp. Stockton to Angel's Camp. Tuttletown and the
"Sage of Jackass Hill"

Following as near as might be the route of the old Argonauts, I avoided
trains, and on a warm summer night boarded the Stockton boat. In the
early morning you are aware of slowly rounding the curves of the San
Joaquin River. Careful steering was most essential, as owing to the dry
season the river was unusually low. The vivid greens afforded by the
tules and willows that fringe the river banks, and the occasional
homestead surrounded by trees, with its little landing on the edge of
the levee, should delight the eye of the artist.

I lost no time in Stockton and headed for Milton in the foot-hills,
just across the western boundary of Calaveras County. The distance
was variously estimated by the natives at from twenty to forty
miles--Californians are careless about distances, as in other matters.
Subsequently I entered it in my note book as a long tw