A La California. Albert S. Evans

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ distinction of being the only man in California elected, in 1869, to the Legislature fairly and squarely on the Fifteenth Amendment issue. They find their business so profitable that they have bought another ranch of only forty-five thousand acres in San Luis Obispo County, which they were then stocking. They intend to carry on both dairies, but the business of each will be kept separate, and the style of the firms will be "Steele Brothers of San Mateo," and "Steele Brothers of San Luis Obispo." For the prices realized for their butter and cheese—they are too far from the city to sell their milk—see the market quotations in the San Francisco dailies. Yet California imports immense quantities of butter and cheese annually, while there are still millions of acres of cheap, unoccupied grazing lands scattered all through the State, from San Diego to Del Norte, and from the coast to the far recesses of the Sierra Nevada.

      Mr. Steele asked us to walk back into the garden, and see what could be done in six years in the way of fruit-raising on land which had, until quite recently, been supposed fit only to raise jackass-rabbits and long-horned, worthless, and savage Spanish cattle. A little "arroyo" comes down from the canon in the mountains near the house, and makes a bend around the ground selected for the garden. Along the bank of this "arroyo" willows and other trees were planted to aid the large, scattered live-oaks which stood there in breaking the winds. Thus sheltered, the apple, pear, fig, plum, apricot, peach, soft-shelled almond, and other trees, grew up like weeds, and ​soon were loaded with luscious fruit. From one apple-tree, the second year after it was planted out, Mr. Steele picked two bushels of the finest apples. The pear-trees I found had every branch propped up separately, and on some the fruit would weigh at least four times as much as the entire tree, roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. The figs were covered with the second crop of the season, nearly ripe, and the plums were like great yellow balls of sugar and butter. All the fruit is perfect; even the grapes, which flourish best in the hot, sunny valleys, being large and delicious. Every variety of vegetable seemed to flourish; golden squashes and pumpkins covered the ground, and luscious melons lay ripening in the sun. Among the curiosities we noticed a bed of peanuts. These pets of the Bowery patrons grow luxuriantly in California, being largely cultivated by the Chinese in Sacramento Valley, and are larger and better than any imported; the tops look something like alfalfa. All this without irrigation or other cultivation than spading and hoeing, in the most inhospitable climate found in California below the snow-belt of the Sierra Nevada.

      The grizzly bear still prowls in the redwoods, and occasionally comes down to levy tribute on the rancheros. My friend showed me where two huge grizzlies were seen lying in an arroyo sunning themselves only a few days before. The party who saw them had lost no cattle of that description, and he, in the expressive language of California, "got up and dusted" in the opposite direction as fast as his horse could carry him. And well he might. Mr.

      ​

      LASSOING A GRIZZLY.

      ​ ​Steele pointed out where a fearful scene was enacted just above his garden in 1867. An old she-bear came down with her two cubs in the day-time and seized a hog. Two men employed on the ranch, both Portuguese, started to rescue the hog. One had a gun, the other only a garden mattock. They found her by the fence eating the hog, and yelled at her to drive her away. She accepted the challenge, and with a growl dashed over the fence and after them. The man with the gun pointed it full-cocked at her head, but, as he afterward admitted, when he felt her hot breath in his face, became demoralized, dropped the weapon and jumped over the fence. His companion followed his example, and they jumped back and forth for some minutes with the enraged brute in close pursuit. At length the man who had the mattock started to run across the field toward the house; but the bear caught him, threw him down, bit him through the thigh, and then started after the other assailant. Had the wounded man feigned death he would have been saved; but not understanding grizzly fighting, he jumped up and began shouting for help. At this she turned upon him more infuriated than ever, and, seizing him by the side, literally tore him in pieces, killing him instantly. The other man escaped. The next morning the bear, bear-like, returned to finish the hog, and was shot by a party lying in wait for her.

      Three or four years ago a San Franciscan staying at the Forest Home, on the mountains between Santa Cruz and San José, a few miles east of this place, was one day digging up a honeysuckle bush ​near the house, when he saw something stir in the bushes and gave it a poke with the hoe. A moment later the ladies saw him vault over the fence into the door-yard, with a grizzly at his heels. He managed to escape, but left a portion of his pantaloons behind as a keepsake. That night the family slept n the second story of the house with the windows fastened down.

      Almost every schoolboy in America is familiar with stories of the savage ferocity and immense strength of the grizzly bear of California. As a rule as I think I may have intimated elsewhere, hunters stories may safely be taken with some grains of allowance. The lion has generally been represented as the "King of Beasts," and numberless are the stories of his courage, strength, and ferocity. The truth is, the lion is nothing but a great overgrown cat, and his courage is just that of the cat on a large scale, and nothing more. A cat will fight when cornered, from sheer excess of cowardice, but she always prefers running. Find the weight of a cat and that of a lion, and just so many times as the lion is heavier than the cat, just so much more fight and courage of the same character exactly you will find in him. But the stories of the dangerous character of the grizzly, unlike those relating to the lion, are not and cannot be exaggerated. I know from observation that the oldest hunters are the most afraid of a contest with the grizzly, and take the greatest pains to avoid one. It is always the young, inexperienced hunter who sallies out half armed and alone to fight a grizzly; and one dose ​is generally found quite enough to cure him of such folly.

      The plain truth is, that the grizzly is much better entitled to the title of King of Beasts than the lion. He fears neither man nor beast, and, instead of waiting to be attacked, will, if hungry or in any way out of humor, invariably become the attacking party whatever the odds against him. A lucky shot penetrating the heart, breaking the vertebra, or entering the brain, will sometimes cause almost instant death; but in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred the first shot only enrages and infuriates him, and renders him the most dangerous animal on earth to fall into the clutches of.

      The bear, like the hog, is "set in his ways," obstinate, and inclined to adhere, with unflinching pertinacity, to established customs and habits. He never goes back on the traditions of his race. He is the true natural conservative, believes to the utmost in the wisdom of his ancestors, and hates innovation. He forgets nothing, and learns nothing from experience. You can always count on his doing a certain thing in a certain contingency; as they say out west, "he averages well." He invariably buries his prey where he kills it, and returns at night to feed upon it. The knowledge of this fact has before now saved many a hunter's life. The man who has the courage and nerve to lie still as if dead, and never cringe when he is lifted by the bear's teeth, stands a chance of being buried under a pile of loose leaves and rubbish, and left for hours or until night; but woe to him if he moves so much a finger before ​he knows that the bear is out of sight; his fate is then certain. Rancheros who are annoyed by the killing of their stock by grizzlies take advantage of this habit of the bear, and, on discovering where one has buried a steer, hog. or sheep, construct a platform high up on a large tree, if one is convenient, or dig a pit if no tree is near, and on the platform or in the pit await the bear's return at night, prepared to give him a volley from the largest and most formidable guns obtainable. I have often seen these platforms in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range, and listened to the stories of the hunters who "went for" the grizzlies there.

      On the 14th of March, 1871, George W. Teel, a youth of seventeen years, employed as a stock-herder on the foothills of the Mount St. Helena range, only five miles from Calistoga, discovered the track of a grizzly near his camp, and, boy-like, determined to lay for him. Six hundred yards from camp he dug a hole in the ground deep enough to wholly hide him, then hung a piece of venison on a tree near by, loaded his double-barreled gun with all the powder he dared СКАЧАТЬ