Part 7

The big, open fireplace at Newport's home, and the bountiful, well-cooked supper with which we were greeted, were well calculated to make us happy and contented. The long drive in the wind rendered all of us sleepy, and by 9 o'clock we had retired. I never woke up until 6 o'clock next morning.

Shooting Grounds.

After breakfast we proceeded in our machine to the shooting ground. The sky was heavily overcast with watery, wicked looking clouds. Rifts in the sky, here and there, let some frozen looking sunbeams through, but there was no warmth in their rays. We had our first shoot on the edge of a grain field, but the birds quickly flew to some high hills to the west.

Rounding the pass through these hills, I never saw the Perris Valley more weirdly beautiful. The clouds were high. On the north Mt. San Bernardino loomed up, grim, snow-capped and forbidding. To the east old Tahquitz, guardian of the passes to the desert, reared his snow-capped head, far above the surrounding country. To the south Mt. Palomar stretched his long, lazy looking form, with his rounded back and indented outline, from east to west. His distance from us made him look like a line of low, outlying hills, instead of the sturdy old mountain that he is. All of these mountains bore most exquisite purple hues. The same coloring was assumed by those groups of lesser hills that, cone-like, are scattered over the easterly edge of the Perris Valley, and which separate the Hemet and the San Jacinto country from the rest of the valley. The coloring of the floor of the valley itself was particularly exquisite. There was just enough light, just enough of sunbeams struggling through the sodden clouds to illuminate, here and there, an alfalfa field, or here and there a grove of trees, so as to bring them out in startling contrast to the somber colors of the shaded portions of the valley. But with it were signs of the dying year, a premonition of storms to come, storms unpleasant while they last, but revivifying in their effects.

Many Quail--Too Cold.

In the fifteen years during which I have shot upon these grounds, I never got up more or larger bands of quail than we did that morning. The day was too cold for good shooting. Give me the good old summer time, with the thermometer about 80 degrees, for good quail shooting. In the cool days the birds run or get up and fly a half mile at a time. They will not scatter out and lie close, so that you can get them up one by one and fill your bags. On the cold days they also break cover at very long range. They led us a merry chase up the steepest hills and down the most abrupt declivities. All of the time we were slowly making good.

Lloyd Newport was there on his buckskin horse. Now you could see him way up on a hillside, then again down in some deep valley, running like mad to check the flight, or turn the running march of some band of birds that was leading those of us on foot a double-quick run. Shooting as he rode, now to the right, now to the left, then straight ahead, he got his share of the birds.

Little Fred Newport, only 14 years old, was shooting like a veteran, and long before the rest of us had scored, he proudly announced that he had the limit. The final round-up found us with 109 birds for seven guns--a good shoot, under very adverse circumstances. We had the satisfaction of knowing that we left plenty of birds on the ground for next year.

The quail shooting of 1911 is at an end. Only the memory of it remains. I shall cherish the memory deeply in my affections, and let it stir my enthusiasm for the out-of-door life when the world seems all balled up, and things are going wrong.

The Rattlesnake.

While proceeding along an unfrequented road, with sage brush on each side of it, we ran across a rattlesnake, about four feet long, and of good circumference, twisted up into a most peculiar position. Investigation found that, notwithstanding the coolness of the day, he was foraging for game, and was engaged in swallowing a good-sized kangaroo rat. The tail of the rat protruded several inches from his mouth. The snake glared at us, but made no effort to escape or fight. He seemed dazed, probably half choked by his efforts to swallow the rat. We straightened him out on the ground and blew his head off with a shotgun. We then disgorged the rat, which was at least four or five inches long, and an inch and a half in diameter. The snake was then quickly skinned. He had eleven rattles and a button.

Snakes eat the eggs and the young of the quail. In view of the ravages by snakes, hawks, weasles, skunks, wildcats and coyotes I do not see how there are any quail left for the sportsmen. The fight of these marauders is constantly going on, while the sportsmen's efforts are at present limited to a very short period.

At a quarter after two we left Newport's for home. We took in a little gasoline at Riverside. This was the only stop made on the home run, which was accomplished in three hours and a quarter (seventy-six miles) with a perfect score so far as the machine was concerned.

Nature at Her Loveliest.

We did not encounter the cruel wind in returning that buffeted us on the outward trip. I never saw the San Gabriel Valley more beautiful than it was that afternoon. As we bowled along the road this side of San Dimas, the entire valley lay before us. To the west were the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains; on the east, the San Jose Hills. They connected with the Puente Hills to the south. West of these came the hills of the Rancho La Merced, running from the San Gabriel River westerly, and still west of them come the hills, which run east from the Arroyo Seco, north of the Bairdstown country. From our position these hills all seemed to connect without any breaks or passes in them. Thus the valley before us was one mountain-and-hill-bound amphitheater. The sky was overcast by grayish clouds. The sun hung low in the west, directly in front of us. How gorgeous was the coloring of the sky and valley! How the orchards and vineyards were illuminated! How the colors lingered and seemed to fondle every growing thing, and paint each rock and point of hill as no artist could! The sun hung in one position for quite a time before taking its final dip below the horizon. The clouds assumed a golden tinge, turning to burnished copper. Through breaks or irregular rifts therein, we got glimpses of the sky beyond of an opalescent blue in strong contrast with the crimson coloring of the clouds, all of which were intensely illuminated by the setting sun. Underneath this vast sea of riotous coloring there was a subdued, intense light, which I can not describe or account for. It brought every object in the valley plainly into view, lifted it into space, and illuminated it. After we had passed Azusa we chanced to look back at "Old Baldy" and the Cucamonga peaks. They were in a blaze of glorious light, purple, pink, crimson, fiery red, all mingled indiscriminately, yet all preserved in their individual intensity.

Oh, land so rare, where such visions of delight are provided by the unseen powers for our delectation! As I surveyed this vast acreage, evidencing the highest cultivation, with princely homes, vast systems of irrigation, with orange orchards and lemon groves in, every stage of development, from the plants in the seed beds to trees of maturity and full production, I congratulated myself on living in such an age, and amid such environments.

Let us appreciate, enjoy and defend until our dying day, this glorious land, unswept by blizzards, untouched by winter's cruel frosts, unscathed by the torrid breath of sultry summer, a land of perpetual sunshine, where roses, carnations, heliotrope, and a thousand rare, choice and delicate flowers bloom in the open air continually, where in the spring time the senses are oppressed by the odor of orange and lemon blossoms, and where the orchards yield a harvest so fabulous in returns as to be almost beyond human comprehension.

An Auto Trip Through the Sierras.

Tule River and Yosemite.

I have been in California fifty-four years. During all of this time I had never visited the Yosemite. Before it was too late I determined to go there. We started in June, 1911.

Accompanied by Mrs. Graves, my son Francis and a friend, Dr. A. C. Macleish, we left Alhambra, June seventh of this year at seven o'clock a. m. We passed through Garvanza, Glendale and Tropico, and were soon on the San Fernando road. The run through the town of that name and through the tunnel, recently constructed to avoid the Newhall grade, was made in good time and without incident.

Newhall.

At Newhall we procured and carried with us a five-gallon can of gasoline. A short distance out of Saugus, we turned into the San Francisquito Canyon road. Shortly afterwards a brand new inner tube on the right rear wheel went completely to pieces. It had been too highly cured and could not stand the heat. We replaced it with another one, and were soon crossing and recrossing the stream which meanders down the canyon. Constantly climbing the grade, we were whirling from sunshine to shadow alternately as the road was overhung with or free from trees.

Old Memories Aroused.

I could not help recalling my trip over the same road with my old friend, Mr. A. C. Chauvin, on the third day of October, 1876. The road was fairly good. Our machine was working nicely, the day a pleasant one, and the trip enjoyable. In a few hours we reached Elizabeth Lake. I pointed out the very spot at which Chauvin and myself camped thirty-five years before.

Ah, the fleeting years! How quickly they have sped! What experiences we have had! What pleasures we have enjoyed! What sorrows endured in thirty-five years! Well it is, that then the future was not unfolded to me, and that all the enthusiasm and hope and ambition of youth led me on to the goal, which has brought me so much joy, as well as much sorrow. Momentous events have affected not only my own life, but the life of nations in these thirty-five years.

Crossing Antelope Valley.

We passed the lake, turning down the grade into Antelope Valley. After several miles of very rolling country, we halted under some almond trees in a deserted orchard for lunch. The grasshoppers were thicker than people on a hot Sunday at Venice or Ocean Park in the "good old summer time." We managed to eat our lunch without eating any of the hoppers, but there wasn't much margin in our favor in the performance. Before starting we emptied our can of gasoline into the tank. Soon we intercepted the road leading from Palmdale to Fairmont and Neenach. We passed both of these places, then Quail Lake and Bailey Hotel. We were soon at Lebec. Then came the beautiful ride past Castac Lake, and down the canyon, under the noble white oak trees, which are the pride of Tejon Ranch. We passed through Ft. Tejon with its adobe buildings already fallen or rapidly falling into ruinous decay. Still descending through the lower reaches of the canyon, we took the final dip down the big grade and rolled out into the valley. A pleasant stream of water followed the road out into the plains, at which sleek, fat cattle drank, or along whose banks they lolled listlessly, having already slaked their thirst. We whirled past the dilapidated ranch buildings put down in the guide books as Rose Station. From this point, since my trip over this country a year ago, much of the road to Bakersfield has been fenced.