Lounging upon the hotel veranda, turning our backs upon the last vestiges of civilization in the shape of a few guests who dressed for dinner as if it were imperative, we were greeted with mellow heartiness by a hale old backwoodsman, a genuine representative of the primeval. It was Ingram, of Ingram House, Austin Creek, Red Woods, Sonoma County, Primeval California. It was he, with ranch-wagon and stalwart steeds. The Artist, who was captain-general of the forces, at once held a consultation with Ingram, whom we will henceforth call the Doctor, for he is a doctor--minus the degrees--of divinity, medicine, and laws, and master of all work; a deer-stalker, rancher, and general utility man; the father of a clever family, and the head of a primeval house. In half an hour we were jolting, bag and baggage, body and soul, over roads wherein the ruts were filled with dust as fine as flour, fording trout-streams, and winding through wood and brake. We passed the old logging-camp, with the hills about it blackened and disfigured for life; and the new logging-camp, with its stumps still smoldering, its steep slides smoking with the friction of swift-descending logs, the ring of the ax and the vicious buzz of the saw mingled with the shouts of the woodsmen. How industry is devastating that home of the primeval! Soon the road led us into the very heart of the redwoods, where superb columns stood in groups, towering a hundred and even two hundred feet above our heads! A dense undergrowth of light green foliage caught and held the sunlight like so much spray; the air was charged with the fragrance of wild honeysuckle and resiniferous trees; the jay-bird darted through the boughs like a phosphorous flame, screaming his joy to the skies; squirrels fled before us; quails beat a muffled tattoo in the brush-snakes slid out of the road in season to escape destruction. We soon dropped into the bed of the stream Austin Creek, and rattled over the broad, strong highway of the winter rains. We bent our heads under low-hanging boughs, drove into patches of twilight, and out on the other side into the waning afternoon; we came upon a deserted cottage with a great javelin driven through the roof to the cellar; it had been torn from one of the gigantic redwoods and hurled by a last winter's gale into that solitary home. Fortunately no one had been injured, but the inmates had fled in terror, lashed by the driving storm. We came to Ingram House in the dusk, out of the solitude of the forest into a pine-and-oak opening, the monotony of which was enlivened with a fair display of the primitive necessities of life--a vegetable garden on the right, a rustic barn on the left, a house of "shakes" in the distance, and nine deer-hounds braying a deep-mouthed welcome at our approach.