United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meiggs invited me to go with him to a rich mercantile house on Clay Street, whose partners belonged in Hamburg, and there, in the presence of the principals of the house, he demonstrated, as clearly as a proposition in mathematics, that his business at Mendocino was based on calculations that could not fail.
A few, the best gamblers, soon have more than they need, while the many have little or nothing. The valleys of Mendocino County are fascinatingly beautiful, and a trip direct to the coast, with a spin along ten miles of perfect beach as we returned, was a fine contrast to hungry climbing over rugged heights.
For a month his whereabouts remained a mystery; then one day Moira received a letter from him informing her that he had a job knee-bolting in a shingle mill in Mendocino County. In the interim Bryce had not been idle. From his woods-crew he picked an old, experienced hand one Jabez Curtis to take the place of the vanished McTavish.
The Northwestern Pacific, indeed, had been slowly building from San Francisco Bay up through Marin and Sonoma counties to Willits in Mendocino County. But there it had stuck to await that indefinite day when its finances and the courage of its board of directors should prove equal to the colossal task of continuing the road two hundred miles through the mountains to Sequoia on Humboldt Bay.
Land was sighted at 42, north of Mendocino, and an effort made to anchor farther north; but contrary winds and a rock bottom gave insecure mooring. This was not surprising, as it was on this coast that Cook and Vancouver failed to find good harborage.
Along the foot trail which led down the side of the big canon to the intake of the water-pipe, they established their fernery. It was not a formal affair, and the ferns were left to themselves. Dede and Daylight merely introduced new ones from time to time, changing them from one wild habitat to another. It was the same with the wild lilac, which Daylight had sent to him from Mendocino County.
The way was lined with flowers wild lilac, wild roses, poppies, and lupins. Such lupins! giant clumps of them, of every lupin-shade and colour. And it was along the Mendocino roads that Charmian caused many delays by insisting on getting out to pick the wild blackberries, strawberries, and thimble-berries which grew so profusely.
He knew of the presence of the mountain lion, adrift down from Mendocino County, ere the first shorthorn calf was slain, and came home from the encounter, torn and bleeding, to attest what he had discovered and to be the cause of Harley Kennan riding trail next day with a rifle across his pommel.
The Spanish galleons, or vessels, loaded with their costly freight, used to come home by crossing the Pacific to Cape Mendocino, and then sailing down the coast of California to Mexico. Before long the English, who hated Spain and were at war with her, sent out brave sea-captains to capture the Spanish galleons and their cargoes.
Then, with a hollow laugh: "I reckon you'll be tolerably disappointed, Uncle Sebastian. There was a time when I'd 'a' looked forward to leavin' Mendocino. I've had hankerin's, and I've got 'em yet but I'm scared. I've never been outa the country but once. What c'n I do away from here? What d'ye expect of me, anyway?" "Ye c'n certainly do as much out o' here as ye're doin' here, Hiram."
Word Of The Day