And while the fire still raged within the walls of that hostelry of which they were all so proud, there appeared over the poorest and most tumble-down shelter of all the words: PALACE HOTEL. California still may be young, but, better yet, California is still brave and unspoiled. The distance to Redding by railway seemed to take hours and hours. There were no fences, no divisions of property, no irregular stone-wall separations, as in the East, and no parti-colored plaids of green and brown denoting “this is mine and that is yours,” that I was to see in Europe later on. It was my first view of large acreage—miles and miles of it—and in the distance (real distance in California, which you soon find out if you start to walk it) great hills of red and purple, while right beside the tracks, unprotected from the weather, were endless stretches of sacks rammed full of wheat. Most of the towns took the name of the first settler, and Redding was called for the father of Joe Redding, who has distinguished himself in many ways—one being to write the libretto for Victor Herbert’s opera, “Natoma.” One unsuspecting village named “Dorris Bridge,” after its founder, had this changed to “Alturas” by a representative whom the voters had sent to the state legislature. When the populace heard that they were forced hereafter (by law) to be called by a classic name, they took their guns and prepared to meet that assemblyman as soon as he got off the stage. Needless to say, he never returned home. From Redding on was a stage line, winding in among the immense hills, with turns in the road so sharp that the leaders of the six-horse team would have to climb the bank in order that the coach might go around the corner. On one occasion an animal which I took for a big collie dog, but which was in reality a coyote, ran behind us for quite a ways. By this time I took any kind of a job—took it, and learned how to do it afterward; so at Bayley’s, my first stop, I did many things, from picking blackberries to running a mowing machine—only knocking two teeth out of the scythe before I got the hang of it. Old man Bayley, being a democratic soul, played cards with his help at night, thereby taking away from them regularly what he paid them during the day. Life was profitable to no one but Bayley, so I decided to move on. Let me say that on my return trip I stopped again at Bayley’s. I was greeted joyously. But I had learned a new game up in the country. I taught Mr. Bayley seven-up, and before I left that place I had won back all the money he had taken away from me when I worked for him, and fifty dollars “velvet”—incidentally paying my trip back to San Francisco.