s Cape Horn, some four miles from
Colfax. Although several miles in an air line intervened, one seemed
to feel the vibrations in the air caused by the panting monster, while
great jets of steam shot up above the pine trees. I confess to a sense
of elation at the spectacle. Nature in some of her moods seems so
malignant, that I felt proud of this magnificent exhibition of man's
victory over the obstacles she so well knows how to interpose.

The road between Colfax and Grass Valley--the next stopping place on our
itinerary--lay through so lovely a country that we passed through it as
in a dream. Descending into the valley we were joined by several
small boys, attracted, I suppose, by our--to them--unusual costume and
equipment, who plied us with questions. They asked if "we carried a
message for the mayor," and were visibly disappointed when we regretted
we had overlooked that formality. For several minutes they kept us busy
trying to give truthful answers to most unexpected questions. They had
never heard of Tuolumne and wanted to know if it was in California.
Their world, in fact, was bounded by Colfax on the south and Nevada City
on the north.

Grass Valley received its name from the meadow in which the town, for
the most part, is situated. The ground is so moist that, notwithstanding
the heat, the grass was a vivid green. Apple trees growing in the grass,
as in the orchards of England and in the Atlantic States, and perfectly
healthy, conveyed that suggestion of the Old World which lends a
peculiar charm to these towns. And Grass Valley really is a town, having
seven thousand inhabitants; and is, withal, clean, picturesque and
altogether delightful. One understood why "Tuolumne" sounded meaningless
to those small boys. Thus early in life they were under influences
which will probably keep them in after years--as they kept their
fathers--permanent citizens of the town of Grass Valley.

Grass Valley was one of the richest of the old mining camps. There was
literally gold everywhere, even in the very roots of the grass. The
mining is now all underground and drifts from the North Star and Ophir
mines underlie a part of the town.

After a methodical search, we discovered an excellent restaurant and
made a note of it as a recurrent possibility. A judicious choice of a
suitable place in which to eat and eke, to pass the night, is to the
tramp a matter of vital interest. Robert Louis Stevenson, in those
entertaining narra