conversed with its people. Burney Valley can be irrigated by ditches run from her several streams. Like all these wild localities, she needs men of enterprise and means sufficient to invest a few dollars for the sake of future prosperity.

A mile this side of the falls there is a tiny lake on the lava ridge a few rods from the road. It is called Blue Lake, and is about one hundred and fifty yards long, and full of trout of a large variety. As the lake has no visible outlet, the fish must come from a subterranean passage. Here the stock for miles around come to water. We paused beside a mill on Burney Creek to watch the sharp-toothed saw slit through and through the white bole of a sugar-pine that sweated drops of yellow rosin. A little farther, and we heard the rushing of the falls. We could not see them from the road, but running down a beaten path, we broke upon the picture with a suddenness that took away my breath.

The exquisite beauty of these falls is indescribable by pen or brush. It is a perfect jewel in a perfect setting. They are not grand and terrifying like Niagara or Yosemite, but the imagination cannot suggest a single alteration in outline, combination, or color. The river subdivides into two white streams that fall one hundred and twenty feet on either side of a jutting rock, which lifts its mimic turret into a bank of dripping ferns and flaming tiger lilies. The lava wall to left and right of these cataracts makes a crescent curve and half way down the dry black rocks the water gushes out from eaves of plume-like filices, and runs a thousand shining ribbons over a solid background of bright green ferns and mosses. A myriad of rainbows float in the starry mists sent upward by the plunge of waters into the wide, black pool below.

Miss Madge and I made the difficult descent to the falls, slipping and stumbling over stones, and clinging frantically to overhanging brush.

When we stood at last on

the margin of the pool, we were enveloped in billows of chilling vapors, and the roar of the water was deafening. Above us on the utmost verge of the rocky ledge several dark pines caught the sunlight. We stood waist-deep in purple flags and scarlet-hearted lilies. When we returned to the remainder of our party we were wet, bruised, and dusty, but highly elated over what we had

seen.

Some miles beyond the falls, from the brow of a hill, we looked down hundreds of feet on Crystal Lake, a glassy sheet of water more than a mile in length, now all ablaze with sunshine. We followed a steep road that lead below to the meadows, green as English ones that poets sing of, that skirt the reed-edged waters to where a dairy stands, its low roofs trailed across by clinging hop vines. Just here the lake leaps over stony steps a dozen feet in height, and pours its foaming floods into a rapid stream that hurries on to Hat Creek. These mimic falls span a hundred and fifty feet, and circle many a tiny isle of richest grass and flowers. The mistress of this dairy stands on her steps in leisure moments and feeds her fishes curds. They crowd by hundreds open-mouthed and eager. She takes advantage of their hunger and drops a hook among them. She draws a prize every

time and throws it into a tank to be convenient for the frying-pan. That morning she had hooked twenty.

"And how do you catch them again ?” I said, watching the pretty creatures dart to and fro in their narrow prison.

"That's just what I'll show you now, as I'm going to let you folks take them all home." And seizing a pole with an iron point on the end, this relentless woman speared her fish with every dash, flinging it out on the wet floor where it wriggled and panted for a moment, and when it became quiet was carefully stowed away in a basket by Mrs. Charley. The lake had plenty more and the mistress never

found any trouble catching all they could possibly use. There is an old man living here who makes a business of shipping trout to San Francisco.

After a drink of delicious buttermilk, we went for a row on the lake. They told me the water averaged fifteen feet in depth. We could see hundreds of trout running among the branches of a plant that resembled coral stems. Coming back from the boat, we forced our way through a wild growth of haw and gooseberry bushes and currants full of ripening clusters. The soil all through this country produces many varieties of wild berries, and cultivated ones do equally well.

We drove back over the hill and across the Hat Creek bridge. This clear mountain stream is famous for its fish, and the game all through here is abundant. Hat Creek Valley is gemmed by lakes, several of which are even larger than the one we had just visited. It has another creek also called Rising River, that boils out of the lava rocks, and runs several miles before it reaches Hat Creek. This river is supposed to be the reappearance of Lost River, which sinks in the lava beds a hundred miles above. The people throughout all these valleys are mostly engaged in stock-raising and dairying, though the land is good for fruit and grain.

We called at Shave Head's settlement in hopes of seeing the chief, but unfortunately he was not at home. It is believed that the young generation among these Indians are sincerely attached to the whites, but that nothing but fear keeps the older men from their former depredations.

We reached Burney after dark, and the next morning at ten I took the stage for Fall River. Our road still led through forests of pine. Ten miles beyond Burney we came to the salmon hatchery, on Hat Creek. This building has double the capacity of the United States hatchery on the McCloud River. It contains ninety

boxes sixteen feet long, with eight hatching baskets to the box. It was estimated that four million young salmon could be turned out here every season, but there is some disappointment now expressed as to the success of the undertaking.

On the summit we caught our first view of Pitt River, roaring headlong down one of the grandest of cañons, in a mad succession of turbulent springs and leaps over huge bowlders, heaps of logs, and sheer declivities of rocks. I never saw before so angry a torrent. Sometimes it cut a splendid channel through feathery weeds and willow boughs, and again it tore its furious course through chalky cliffs and dizzy steeps of lava rocks that propped the skies. Pausing not to rest in shaded pools, nor lingering to reflect the mass of ferns and flowers adroop from many a ledge, it rushes to the falls, and bellowing like the sea, it takes a noble plunge of fifty feet that shakes the earth, and makes one cry aloud in sympathy. The scenery on every hand along this cañon is most sublime.

My companion was an aristocratic looking Southern gentleman, whom the driver addressed as Mr. Syd, which I took to be a contraction of some longer name. He seemed well acquainted with all this country, and told me many things of interest.

I shall never forget how I helped drive the logs down this river last June and July," he said, turning his expressive gray eyes toward the stream. "It is the noblest sport imaginable. We started from Big Bend, eighteen miles above Montgomery Creek. Here there is a chute a mile and a quarter in length, made of immense logs down which they slide the others in fifty seconds. Sometimes they meet an obstruction and shoot off on a level from three to four hundred feet, cutting off great trees as they whiz through the air. A man was killed by concussion of a log passing. He was fearfully mangled, and his, boots torn off his feet. The river bank at the end of

the chute is forty feet high, and the logs pitch off with tremendous velocity. An An average drive for six bateaux is six thousand logs. There are the wagon boats for carrying provisions for the men, and the driving boats which are smaller and more easily handled. Both kinds are pointed at bow and stern. We had more than forty men, most of whom traveled along shore so as to direct the logs to the centre of the current. One day I saw from the bank a bateau overturned that was being managed by a couple of Indians. Two boys, lads of ten and twelve, were in it also. The boys escaped on the logs, but the Indians were both hurled under the boiling water, one of them coming up a hundred feet away with the boat rope still between his teeth. These fellows are regular water-rats, and are good hands with the boats. There are many times when we are obliged to unload and carry the provisions along the banks for a distance, letting the boats down the cascades with ropes.

We often did not make

more than a mile and a half a day. It is all dangerous, but there is no end of keen enjoyment. Sometimes the logs get to whirling around in a maelstrom until it gets choked, when they are forced out by the whirlpool. Again they are lodged on rocks, and then there is imminent peril of accident. The driving boats get close to the lower side of the jam, and the men fasten their cantdogs to the key-log, and as soon as they are out of the way, those on shore haul with might and main until it is loosened and the logs are again surging and tumbling in the current. It is a glorious freedom to ride recklessly over rapids, rocks, and whirlpools! You feel wildly exhilarated, as though you had quaffed rich bumpers of champagne!" And the memory of his experience fired his eyes with liveliest emotion. "We went ninety miles this way before we drove the logs into the boom beside the Redding mill."

We had now reached a high point, which

commanded a grand view of the Fall Rive plains. Here lay the little town in the em bracing arms of the two rivers, whose waters meet within her lines. On every side we saw her grain fields stretching golden lengths, through which the rivers coiled like blue and silver serpents. Many homes are built within the curvings of these streams, which are crossed here and there with rustic bridges. The summers are delightful here, but the winters are colder than in any other part of the State. Snow remains on the ground, however, but a few days at a time. To most of our people this part of California is almost an unknown region. Here are a number of large and fertile valleys, extending southward a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Pitt River, now a sluggish stream, traverses this entire distance, and its numerous tributaries drain an equal number of smaller valleys. Altogether there must be about two thousand miles of level farming lands, with little timber, though the surrounding mountains will always furnish sufficient wood for fuel and building purposes. Through Fall River the wool teams travel from Oregon and we frequently met the laboring mules dragging their dusty loads. One of the drivers told us his three wagons contained thirty three thousand pounds. The day before he left Oregon, he said, he had seen twenty-two thousand sheep. expense of transporting such immense quantities of wool so many miles to market, makes it seem probable that this country will soon be in a position to demand a railroad.

The

The house where I stayed at Fall River is built on an island just large enough to furnish a little garden around its porches. Fall River throws an arm around each side, and these people live in the eternal roar of her bright aters tossing foaming billows over a series of cascades that terminate in a fall of more than forty feet. Here the stormy current plows a radiant path across the dull waters of the Pitt. Above this

"Or a manufactory," my host quietly supplemented. "Perhaps the world does not contain the equal of their giant waterpower, capable of running all the machinery on the Merrimac. This river never freezes over and is not subject to heavy floods, as it passes through a lake near its head, which acts as a reservoir to hold the surplus water. This uniformity of flow is a great advantage and will recommend itself to any one who is experienced in dealing with water-power."

The next day we rode around the valley, going as far as the great translucent pools that bubble up from the lava beds and are the source of Fall and Tule Rivers and Bear Creek. Beside this latter stream there are

down, down into the still azure depths until a kind of nightmare terror seizes you and chains you to the spot.

Returning in the twilight, we saw above the dreaming hills Mount Shasta staring straight through a veil of haze in his remorseless vigilance. Bald Mountain on the south looks down upon the barren peaks below him; while to our right and close at hand the pines, like grim old warriors, climb to the topmost point of Soldier Mountain. Near its base once stood Fort Crook, erected in the days of bloody conflicts with the Indians. It was early in the '50's that Lieutenant Crook, coming along Hat Creek to establish his post, dressed