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The story of this trip I have recounted more fully in the book Heroes of California. Without this additional food the party never could have survived. On the 22nd they crossed the Truckee River for the forty-ninth time. Heavy snow now began to intercept their weary way.
That was all very well for the "mild" cats, but the spit-fiery ones were not so easily satisfied. One of them sent him a letter addressed, "Mr. H. W. Meow Huskey, Senate Chamber, Carson City." Others still more vindictive pasted a picture of a large tomcat, hunched of back and bristling of hair, right next to the Senator's campaign picture which already decorated the middle of the Truckee.
In summer, there is Belle Isle, a beautiful little amusement park on the banks of the Truckee, almost in the center of the city and the scene of many jolly carnivals. The city park is also a pretty little spot, and here are given many festivals and concerts for the Red Cross and other charitable organizations. It is a delightful place to spend a summer afternoon or evening.
Lake Tahoe is twenty miles in length and about five wide, and its icy cold waters are of crystal clearness and very pure. Fallen Leaf Lake is a smaller Tahoe, and Donner Lake, not far from Truckee, and now the camping-place of many a summer visitor, is the place where years ago the Donner overland party spent a terrible winter in the Sierra snows.
The main street was in a pretty little meadowed vale, lined on either side with trees, and close to the Truckee, which here rushes and dashes and roars and sparkles among the bowlders and rocks that bestrew its bed. When it was found the ore did not "pan out," the excitement died down even more rapidly than it arose, and in 1863-4 the camp was practically dead.
All down here the road is ridable in patches; but many dismounts have to be made, and the walking to be done aggregates at least one-third of the whole distance travelled during the day. Sneakish coyotes prowl about these mountains, from whence they pay neighborly visits to the chicken-roosts of the ranchers in the Truckee meadows near by.
The little shanty, with a few acres of rather rocky ground, on the bank of the Truckee, is presided over by a lonely bachelor of German extraction, who eyes me with evident suspicion, as, leaning on my bicycle in front of his rude cabin door I ask to be accommodated for the night.
Elliott was down on what was known as Truckee Meadows with a company of soldiers, but, so far, was having very poor success killing Indians. Col. Elliott had been sent out there with four companies of cavalry to protect the emigrants against the Pah-Ute or Piute Indians, which were very numerous down on the Humboldt, and around the sink of the Carson and as far up the mountains as Lake Tahoe.
Yesterday, while we were at dinner, we were surprised by seeing a party of Indians approaching the camp from the direction of Truckee Lake. They appeared not to have any hostile intentions, so we quietly awaited their approach. The foremost chief held before him a long stick, with a bunch of white feathers dangling at the end.
I think it must have been like the light that shines on a happy mother's face when she holds her love-child in her arms. And then a rainbow encircled the illuminated mountains, like a beautiful filmy halo about the head of the Madonna, while beneath lay the Truckee; its water like silvery veins and sparkling gems, glistening and trembling in the golden light.
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