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But, doubtless, all his heart was in the little coffin in the Mission garden. Once in so often he must come back thither. One day he was seen again in the San Joaquin. The priest, Father Sarria, returning from a visit to the sick at Bonneville, met him on the Upper Road. Eighteen years had passed since Angele had died, but the thread of Vanamee's life had been snapped.
While we were in the Valley some Los Angeles friends had arrived at Wawona and were in camp near the hotel. Signal Peak. We rested at Wawona several days. During one of these I went with the boys on horseback to Signal Peak, whose elevation is seven thousand and ninety-three feet. The San Joaquin valley was enveloped in haze, but the mountain ranges east of us were in plain sight.
Crossing the treeless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin from the west and reaching the Sierra foot-hills, you enter the lower fringe of the forest, composed of small oaks and pines, growing so far apart that not one twentieth of the surface of the ground is in shade at clear noonday.
The trappings here puzzle the realists who insist on a portrait of a certain personage Joaquin Miller. The sculptor, I know, intended nothing of the sort. It is his vision of an aged pioneer living over again for a moment his prime. Astride his ancient pony hung with chance trappings, symbols of association, with axe and rifle with which he conquered the wilderness, he broods the past.
During the morning we saw a stately pair of wild pigeons winging their swift flight in and out of some tall pine trees. Water High in San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin river was very high and had overflowed thousands of acres of land. Our road, slightly elevated, passed for miles through an inland sea. To reach Los Banos, we made a wide detour to the left.
Then the journey led up the Gila River to Arizona City, across the Mojave desert in Southern California and finally through the San Joaquin Valley to San Francisco. Today a traveler could cover nearly the same route, leaving St. Louis over the Frisco Railroad, transferring to the Texas Pacific at Fort Worth, and taking the Southern Pacific at El Paso for the remainder of the trip.
He patches up the face of the wounded scout, whose proudest future boast will be that Joaquin Murieta gave him those honorable scars. Maxime, worn and faint, falls into a fevered sleep. His subordinate holds the ranch, with all the force ready for any attack. The afternoon wears on. In sleep Valois forgets both the flying bandit and his fate.
Needless to say the plan fell through. By the San Joaquin Valley route via Sacramento, the distance to Los Angeles is five hundred and eighty miles, or by San Francisco and the Coast Line six hundred and ninety-two miles. During the summer season trains run frequently through, making Tahoe easily accessible.
Some work in the sand by washing from the surface in a wooden bowl, or tin pan; some gouge it out from the rocks or slate; the more lazy ones roll about and pick up the large pieces, leaving the small gold for the next emigration. The extent of the gold region on the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers extends a distance of 800 miles in length by 100 in width.
This sort of recrimination is characteristic of a certain blustering type of claimant for the title of poet, such as Joaquin Miller, a rather disorderly American of the last generation, who dismissed attacks upon the singer with the words, Yea, he hath sinned.
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