We put up several hares and covies of partridges, whose parents had never been shot at, and we fully satisfied ourselves as to the existence in abundance of both bears and deer.
Arrived at the summit of a hill, the little valley we were in search of lay at our feet. It was scarcely twenty acres in extent, level as a table, bounded on one side by masses of red-wood trees, and on the other by a fine stream, whose banks were shaded with alders and wild vines. The valley itself was free from shrub or tree, excepting that from the centre there rose a clump of seven gigantic red-woods, which growing in a circle, and meeting at the roots, formed a natural chamber to which there was but one inlet.
As the land we were on belonged to the United States government, I determined to take March’s advice, and squat on this valley, for I became at once enchanted with it, as indeed were my companions: I therefore affixed to the red-wood trees a paper I had long prepared and kept in my knapsack for immediate use, and which ordered all men to take notice that F. M. claimed, under the laws of pre-emption, one hundred and fifty acres of land measuring from that spot, and that he intended to defend his right by force of arms, &c. &c.
Considering that, saving the wild Indians, human foot had probably never crossed the spot, the notice scarcely seemed necessary, and the Indians did not respect it, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter.
By the time we had walked thoroughly over the property and discovered fresh advantages, and had drunk of the stream and found the water excellent, it was dusk, and not being sufficiently satisfied with our landmarks, to try our way back to our camp that night, we determined on passing it in the red-wood clump; the fire was soon stacked and lighted—that jolly camp-fire that on the instant suffuses everything around it with its cheerful ruddy glow, and sends its sharp crackle merrily up through the air, throwing a charm over the most inhospitable desert, and giving a zest to the hunter’s meal be it ever so homely. How naturally as we sit around it we recall the memory of wet seasons, When benighted, damp, chilly, and tired, we selected amidst the falling mist, the driest and most sheltered spot in the wet brushwood; how we laugh now at the vain attempt to kindle damp leaves and undergrowth; the partial success that engendered hope, only to render the failure of the last match more intolerable; the dark long night, dreary, drizzling, with one of us on guard for danger, and all unable to sleep, watching impatiently for the morning, with the first dull streak of which we stretch our half stiffened limbs, and shouldering the dead game, that no camp-fire over night converted into a well-earned and needful supper, seek some sheltered spot elsewhere, and make a breakfast of it. The recollection of nights like these—and they fall to the lot of every hunter—causes one to contemplate the blazing embers with a simple gratitude, that is not always engendered elsewhere by the possession of the comforts of this world.
We had a leash of hares, which being skinned and cleaned were impaled on withers and placed at the fire to roast, where they looked like three martyrs flayed alive, and staked. Whilst they were cooking we filled the red-wood clump with several armfuls of long oat-straw from the adjacent hill.
After worrying the three hares, we lighted our pipes, and picquetting the dogs round us, we gave ourselves up to the pleasures of a comparison of the happiness of our position as compared with that of other men, and then I sunk into a gentle slumber (of course), while my companions snored in unison with the dogs.
We rose with the sun; and properly speaking, I should take advantage of that fact to inform the reader what part of the surrounding scenery was first bathed in yellow light, and what remained in obscurity; what the deep blue of the distant mountains contrasted with, and what completed the picture in the foreground: but these things are to be found better described in any book of travels of the day; and moreover, at the time of which I am writing, I was not gazing at the landscape, but was proceeding rather unpoetically to bathe in the river, munching on my way the leg of a cold martyr.
In the course of the day we moved our baggage from March’s Mill to our new possession, where I determined on passing the winter.