marked that the Tamalpais grizzlies had the good sense to follow the example of the horses thereabouts, and wear sharp heel- corks. The Doctor heard the remark, and coming back to where I stood, examined the track carefully. I heard him utter something in a deep undertone, which I am sure was not an invocation of the blessing on the head of that descendant of the old Castilians. Manuel's quick ears caught it, and with an expression of general disgust as he looked at the whole party, and a glance of malignant hate at me, he turned his horse's head toward the summit of the mountain, and rode off without a word. For the next half hour no one of us spoke a word—out hearts were two full.
Two miles more of hard climbing, the sweat pouring in streams off our panting horses, brought us to a little secluded flat, in a narrow canon but a short distance below the summit. There is a fine spring of pure, cold water there, and a number of huge, old oaks, gray with the long, trailing moss, which is nourished by the abundant moisture condensed upon it daily from the dense sea fogs which roll up over the summit at brief intervals all the year round. Here we unpacked our traps, uncinched and picketed out our tired horses, and prepared for a long and vigorous campaign. The quails, driven up the mountain from all the valleys below by the incessant raids of the pot-hunters, fairly swarmed in this canon, having found it a safe haven of refuge up to this time that season. We killed several and badly frightened a considerably greater number. Then we spread our table and lunched gloriously.
