Page:A La California.djvu/188

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152
TAMALPAIS.

San Rafael, and as we approached them, the drivers kindly reined the teams out of the track to give us a clear field, while all hands lent us their assistance in the shape of three rousing cheers and a tiger. I am always thankful for human sympathy and encouragement, properly expressed and at the proper time, but I would at that moment, had I been consulted, have preferred that the demonstration made by the passengers in those coaches should have been a trifle less ostentatious and energetic, and possibly postponed altogether for a day or two. I have a dim recollection of hearing the Doctor give expression to a wish to see the entire party of them roasting somewhere, and of not feeling shocked thereat, although, as I am bitterly opposed to everything bordering on slang and profanity, I suppose I was in duty bound to feel shocked at his remark; but I was very busy at the moment, and somehow I did not. I don't think a three-mile race-track was ever got over in less time than it took us to make the run from the embarcadero to San Rafael after the second start. The hospitable citizens of San Rafael saw us coming, with a cloud of dust spinning out in our wake like the tail of a comet, and with one accord turned out to greet us. They appeared to be apprehensive that we might go right on to the next town without stopping, and to ensure a different result they ranged themselves in a line across the road, brandished hands, arms, hats, and everything else they could lay hold of at the moment, shouting, as with one voice, whoa! Whitey and Mousey "whoaed" so suddenly that their riders were