Discovered little worth looking at in the town. Found the buggy waiting: my coachman, a regular Yankee, puffing vigorously at an immense cigar, was seated in readiness, his legs resting on the splash-board. Without removing the cigar from his mouth, he drawled out, ‘Say, Cap’en, guess you’d better hurry up if you mean making the ranch before sundown. Bet your pants this child ain’t agwine that road in the dark nohow.’ ‘What’s to happen?’ I mildly enquired. ‘Happen! Wal, maybe upset; maybe chawed up by a grizzly; maybe cleaned slick out by the greasers. You’d better believe a man has to keep his eye skinned in the daytime; so hurry up, Cap.’ Without further parley I scrambled in, and away we went. Our road lay over broad plains and through occasional belts of timber; deep, gravelly arroyos, in and out of which we dashed with a plunging scramble, marked the course of the floods. Everything was steaming hot; the baked ground reflected back the scorching sun-rays, until the atmosphere quivered as one sees it over a limekiln; the mustangs in a fog of perspiration; the Jehu, denuded of coat and vest, continually yelled ‘A git along,’ with a rein in each hand, steering rather than driving, was red-hot in body and temper. But this was nothing to my state of broil. Exposed to a temperature that would have made one perspire sitting in the shade; to be kept in a state of bodily fear of instant upset; to undergo a continuous exercise that would have been good training for an athlete, to avoid being shot out of the buggy like a shell from a mortar, would have set an Icelander in a glow. The rapidity with which we whirled along, and the eccentric performances of the vehicle, destroyed, in a measure, the enjoyment of a scene quite new to me. We rattled through the splendid valley of Santa Clara, passing here and there a fertile ranch; on either side, the wooded slopes looked like lawns of Nature’s own contriving; far on my left, the bay glimmered like a line of silver light, the ground carpeted with flowers, brilliant escholtzia and blue nemophila were most conspicuous amidst a natural harvest of wild oats and grass; and on all sides, from amongst the clumps of buck-eye and oak, the cheery whistle and chirp of birds rang pleasantly on the ear. Reaching the ‘Halfway House’ (as a small wooden building is named, midway betwixt San José and the mine), we stopped to water the mustangs and refresh the inward man—a respite most acceptable. A ‘tall drink’ worked wonders on my hitherto taciturn coachman, who, as we jogged along the remaining half the journey, related such wonderful stories, that it seemed to me we had hardly left the ‘Halfway House’ ere we rattled under a grove of trees completely shutting out the fading light, and pulled up with a sudden jerk, that well-nigh pitched me over the mustangs. ‘Guess we’ve made it, Cap’en; this here’s the manager’s.’