XII
The establishment of the store attracted a great many campers.California is the campers' state. Immediately after the close of therainy season they set forth. The wayfarer along any of the country roadswill everywhere meet them, either plodding leisurely through thecharming landscape, or cheerfully gipsying it by the roadside. Some ofthe outfits are very elaborate, veritable houses on wheels, with doorsand windows, stove pipes, steps that let down, unfolding devices soingenious that when they are all deployed the happy owners aresurrounded by complete convenience and luxury. The man drives his arkfrom beneath a canopy; the women and children occupy comfortably theliving room of the house--whose sides, perchance, fold outward likewings when the breeze is cool and the dust not too thick. Carlo frisksjoyously ahead and astern. Other parties start out quite as cheerfullywith the delivery wagon, or the buckboard, or even--at a pinch--with thetop buggy. For all alike the country-side is golden, the sun warm, thesky blue, the birds joyous, and the spring young in the land. Theclimate is positively guaranteed. It will not rain; it will shine; thestars will watch. Feed for the horses everywhere borders the roads. Onecan idle along the highways and the byways and the noways-at-all,utterly carefree, surrounded by wild and beautiful scenery. No wonderhalf the state turns nomadic in the spring.
And then, as summer lays its heats--blessed by the fruit man, theirrigator, the farmer alike--over the great interior valleys, the peopledivide into two classes. One class, by far the larger, migrates to theCoast. There the trade winds blowing softly from the Pacific temper thesemi-tropic sun; the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace-like heat of theinterior; and the result is a summer climate even nearerperfection--though not so much advertised--than is that of winter. Herethe populace stays in the big winter hotels at reduced rates, or rentsitself cottages, or lives in one or the other of the unique tent cities.It is gregarious and noisy, and healthy and hearty, and full ofphonographs and a desire to live in bathing suits. Another, and smallercontingent, turns to the Sierras.
We have here nothing to do with those who attend the resorts such asTahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much smaller contingent of hardy andadventurous spirits who, with pack-mule and saddle, lose themselves inthe wonderful labyrinth of granite and snow, of canon and peak, offorest and stream that makes up the High Sierras. But rather let usconfine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that has not thewealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the skill nor the equipmentto explore a wilderness. These people hitch up the farm team, or thegrocer's cart, or the family horse, pile in their bedding and theirsimple cooking utensils, whistle to the dog, and climb up out of thescorching inferno to the coolness of the pines.
They have few but definite needs. They must have company, water, and theproximity of a store where they can buy things to eat. If there isfishing, so much the better. At any rate there is plenty of material forbonfires. And since other stores are practically unknown above thesix-thousand-foot winter limit of habitability, it follows that eachlumber-mill is a magnet that attracts its own community of thesevisitors to the out of doors.
As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted in. Below themill a half-mile there happened to be a small, round lake with meadowsat the upper and lower ends. By the middle of the month two hundredpeople were camped there. Each constructed his abiding place accordingto his needs and ideas, and promptly erected a sign naming it. Thenames were facetiously intended. The community was out for a good time,and it had it. Phonographs, concertinas, and even a tiny transportableorgan appeared. The men dressed in loose rough clothes; the women woresun-bonnets; the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-riderskirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides, fringedgauntlet gloves. They were a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob likednothing better than to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight. There hefound the arrangements differing widely. The smaller ranchmen livedroughly, sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an open fire,eating from tinware. The larger ranchmen did things in better style.They brought rocking chairs, big tents, chinaware, camp stoves andJapanese servants to manipulate them. The women had flags and Chineselanterns with which to decorate, hammocks in which to lounge, books toread, tables at which to sit, cots and mattresses on which to sleep. Nodifference in social status was made, however. The young peopleundertook their expeditions together: the older folks swapped yarns inthe peaceful enjoyment of the forest. Bob found interest in all, for asyet the California ranchman has not lost in humdrum occupations theinitiative that brought him to a new country nor the influences of theexperience he has gained there. To his surprise several of the partieswere composed entirely of girls. One, of four members, was made up ofstudents from Berkeley, out for their summer vacation. Late in thesummer these four damsels constructed a pack of their belongings, lashedit on a borrowed mule, and departed. They were gone for a week in theback country, and returned full of adventures over the detailing ofwhich they laughed until they gasped.
To Bob's astonishment none of the men seemed particularly wrought upover this escapade.
"They're used to the mountains," he was assured, "and they'll get alongall right with that old mule."
"Does anybody live over there?" asked Bob.
"No, it's just a wild country, but the trails is good."
"Suppose they get into trouble?"
"What trouble? And 'tain't likely they'd all get into trouble to once."
"I should think they'd be scared."
"Nothin' to be scared of," replied the man comfortably.
Bob thought of the great, uninhabited mountains, the dark forests, theimmense loneliness and isolation, the thousand subtle and psychicinfluences which the wilderness exerts over the untried soul. Theremight be nothing to be scared of, as the man said. Wild animals areharmless, the trails are good. But he could not imagine any of the girlswith whom he had acquaintance pushing off thus joyous and unafraid intoa wilderness three days beyond the farthest outpost. He had yet tounderstand the spirit, almost universal among the native-bornCalifornians, that has been brought up so intimately with the largethings of nature that the sublime is no longer the terrible. Perhapsthis states it a little too pompously. They have learned that the mereabsence of mankind is 'nothing to be scared of'; they have learned howto be independent and to take care of themselves. Consequently, as amatter of course, as one would ride in the park, they undertakeexpeditions into the Big Country.
Many of these travellers, especially toward the close of the summer,complained bitterly of the scarcity of horse-feed. In the back countrywhere the mountains were high and the wilderness unbroken, they dependedfor forage on the grasses of the mountain meadows. This year theyreported that the cattle had eaten the forage down to the roots. Whereusually had been abundance and pleasant camping, now were hard, closelawns, and cattle overrunning and defiling everything. Under the heavylabour of mountain travel the horses fell off rapidly in flesh andstrength.
"We're the public just as much as them cattlemen," declaimed onegrizzled veteran waving his pipe. "I come to these mountains first insixty-six, and the sheep was bad enough then, but you always had somehorse meadows. Now they're just plumb overrunning the country. There'sthousands and thousands of folks that come in camping, and about a dozenof these yere cattlemen. They got no right to hog the public land."
With so much approval did this view meet that a delegation went toPlant's summer quarters to talk it over. The delegation returnedsomewhat red about the ears. Plant had politely but robustly told itthat a supervisor was the best judge of how to run his own forest. Thisled to declamatory denunciation, after the American fashion, but withoutresulting in further activity. Resentment seemed to be about equallydivided between Plant and the cattlemen as a class.
This resentment as to the latter, however, soon changed to sympathy. InSeptember the Pollock boys stopped overnight at the Lake Meadow on theirway out. Their cattle, in charge of the dogs, they threw for the nightinto a rude corral of logs, built many years before for
just thatpurpose. Their horses they fed with barley hay bought from Merker. Theircamp they spread away from the others, near the spring. It was darkbefore they lit their fire. Visitors sauntering over found George andJim Pollock on either side the haphazard blaze stolidly warming throughflapjacks, and occasionally settling into a firmer position the hugecoffee pot. The dust and sweat of driving cattle still lay thick ontheir faces. A boy of eighteen, plainly the son of one of the other two,was hanging up the saddles. The whole group appeared low-spirited andtired. The men responded to the visitors by a brief nod only. The latterthere-upon sat down just inside the circle of lamplight and smoked insilence. Presently Jim arose stiffly, frying pan in hand.
"It's done," he announced.
They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of half-cookedflapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee.When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes withthe air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brownpaper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollockremarked:
"We ain't washed up."
The statement resulted in no immediate action. After a few moments more,however, the boy arose slowly, gathered the dishes clattering into akettle, filled the latter with water, and set it in the fire. Jim andhis brother, too, bestirred themselves, disappearing in the direction ofthe spring with a bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan.They returned after a few moments, their faces shining, their hairwetted and sleeked down.
"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the silent visitors by wayof welcome.
"Drove far?" asked an old ranchman.
"Twin Peaks."
"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.
"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never seen it so short. Mycattle's pore."
"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter," spoke up some oneboldly.
George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.
"Don't you suppose I know it?" he demanded. "There's a thousand head toomany on my range alone. I've been crowded and pushed all summer, and Iain't got a beef steer fit to sell, right now. My cattle are so poreI'll have to winter 'em on foothill winter feed. And in the springthey'll be porer."
"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your stock?" persistedthe questioner. "Then there'll be a show for somebody. I got three packsand two saddlers that ain't fatted up from a two weeks' trip in August.You got the country skinned; and that ain't no dream."
George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners shrank.
"Get together! Reduce our stock!" he snarled, shaken from the customaryimpassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We got the same number ofcattle, all we mountain men, that our fathers had afore us! There ain'tnever been no trouble before. Sometimes we crowded a little, but we allknow our people and we could fix things up, and so long as they let usbe, we got along all right. It don't _pay_ us to overstock. What for dowe keep cattle? To sell, don't we? And we can't sell 'em unless they'refat. Summer feed's all we got to fat 'em on. Winter feed's no good. Youknow that. We ain't going to crowd our range. You make me tired!"
"What's the trouble then?"
"Outsiders," snapped Pollock. "Folks that live on the plains and justpush in to summer their cattle anyhow, and then fat 'em for the marketon alfalfa hay. This ain't their country. Why don't they stick to theirown?"
"Can't you handle them? Who are they?"
"It ain't they," replied George Pollock sullenly. "It's him. It's therichest man in California, with forty ranches and fifty thousand head ofcattle and a railroad or two and God knows what else. But he'll come uphere and take a pore man's living away from him for the sake of a fewhundred dollars saved."
"Old Simeon, hey?" remarked the ranchman thoughtfully.
"Simeon Wright," said Pollock. "The same damn old robber. ForestReserves!" he sneered bitterly. "For the use of the public! Hell! Who'sthe public? me and you and the other fellow? The public is SimeonWright. What do you expect?"
"Didn't Plant say he was going to look into the matter for next year?"Bob inquired from the other side the fire.
"Plant! He's bought," returned Pollock contemptuously. "He's never seenthe country, anyway; and he never will."
He rose and kicked the fire together.
"Good night!" he said shortly, and, retiring to the shadows, rolledhimself in a blanket and turned his back on the visitors.
The Rules of the Game Page 37
