I decided upon enclosing the valley and rendering it fit for agricultural purposes, but as the winter was approaching, I saw that the first thing requisite was to send for a quantity of useful articles that I had stored in readiness at Sonoma, and which consisted of carpenter’s tools, blankets, powder and shot, books, and a small quantity of groceries. For these I despatched Thomas, and the red-wood clump having been perfected in its internal accommodations, by the addition of a boarded floor, a brushwood roof, with a convenient rack for the rifles, and a secure magazine for the powder, Barnes commenced laying his axe to the red-wood trees on the other side of the stream, whilst I shouldered my rifle and supplied the larder.
There is but one species of deer here—the black-tailed—and the venison, though generally fat, is insipid, owing perhaps to the fact that the dry season parches up every blade of green stuff, and the deer live on the long self-made hay, which in some parts is very plentiful, but not nutritious. The deer are generally found in herds of from five to seven, and it requires great caution to “bag them.â€�
As the wind at this season of the year blows with little variation from the same point, my ground was almost always of the same nature, the river being in my rear, and the mountains before me. Stalking was out of the question, for from the peculiar formation of the country, which consisted of a series of undulations, no extended view could be procured of a herd, and the long grass which afforded them cover abounded with rattle-snakes. The only plan in such a country is to keep your eyes about you, not forgetting the ground, and walk the deer up, against the wind of course, taking advantage of any cover that may be in your path, in the shape of a rock, and using great caution in showing yourself over the rising ground. The herd will probably then start up with a bound from the long oat-straw at your feet, but seldom afford a fine shot, as they plunge away half concealed by it; now you throw yourself down, and see, the herd has stopped within a hundred yards of you; and here a buck advances chivalrously in defence of his harem—five paces—ten—now he is troubled; for although there is pride in his nostrils, and anger in his stamping hoof, there is indecision in those working ears, and by his eye you may read that if anything very ugly appears, he will run away. But a doe advances; this nerves her lord to a few paces more;—now you may fire;—full at the shoulder;—crash—poor buck! Now load again, and then rush up and cut his throat, he is stone dead; rattle, tattle, tattle, tattle,—mind the snake! Now flay him, if you want the skin, or quarter him if you don’t: this done you can carry home a haunch, the skin, the antlers, the tongue and the brains, and these, with your accoutrements and the hot sun, will probably tire you before you get home. In the evening the poor does, with their soft hearts still palpitating, from the nasty noise your rifle made, and the very ugly appearance of yourself generally, will stand in a group, and turn their wistful eyes in the direction where last they saw their master, and wonder—poor innocents—why he is not there as usual to lead them proudly down to the stream, and take his station on the bank to ward off any danger whilst they drink. Night comes, but he does not appear; then they wander about, and cry and pass a miserable night, whilst you are making a good supper off the buck, and are speaking jocularly of him as a “fat old rascal.â€�
The deer is very inquisitive, and if when you have walked up a herd, and have thrown yourself down, in the long grass, you extend your loading rod above your head, with a piece of rag attached to it, the bucks will, even though they wind you, generally approach within killing distance, which, when shooting as I was, for subsistence, should not be more than seventy yards if possible. It is always better to make this rule when shooting for the “larder.� Where game is thin, fire at nothing that you don’t think certain, until the day wanes, and necessity and an empty stomach oblige you to shoot at everything you see. Where game is wild and difficult to approach, and you are living on your gun, too much precaution cannot be taken to insure, if possible, the bagging of everything you hit; for if anything makes sporting cruel, it is the habit that some have of trying long shots, and sending poor brutes away to die a lingering death in the brush. Moreover, I was much in the position of a man with a preserve, and that not overstocked. I could not afford to drive my game, by careless shooting, out of my own beat, and the nature of my country was such that the want of cover in the undulating hills rendered the deer very alert whilst feeding there, and when they took to the mountains in alarm they were lost to the hunter, if alone, so far as this, that they invariably managed to keep a large sized hill between him and themselves; for the Russian River deer are actually cunning, and never did I see one take to a ravine, or lay himself open in any way when once he ascended the steep. I have often killed before I have left the house twenty minutes, but far more frequently have walked the whole day without seeing a deer.
We recovered some wounded deer with the assistance of the blood-hound, Prince; but just as he became useful, he was attacked by a distemper peculiar to the country, which affects the hindquarters with paralysis, and generally kills. I think I saved Prince’s life by administering a tremendous dose of castor-oil on the first appearance of his symptoms, but he was a very sick dog for a long time, and staggered like a three days’ old calf. Having mentioned castor-oil, I wish to do justice to its invaluable qualities, which would not perhaps have been so thoroughly tested by us were it not that our sole stock of medicine consisted of two quart bottles of it. It was successfully applied to both man and beast in every complaint, and acted with a little tobacco-leaf, as a balm for all outward wounds.
Barnes, who was a famous axe-man and was possessed of unusual physical strength and endurance, soon felled a large number of the giant red-woods in the rear of our valley, in order to split them and convert them into rails for enclosing the farm. If we should speak well of the bridge that carries us over, we should also speak well of the tree that roofs us in for the winter, but the red-wood tree (Arbor Vitæ) deserves especial notice on its own merits, which I shall proceed to detail. The size and height attained by the red-wood in California are very wonderful, and faithful accounts of these trees have been received with incredulity. The average size of the full-grown trees may be quoted at from five to six feet in diameter, and about 150 feet in height. This tree maintains in some instances so perfect a perpendicular, that in felling it on a calm day, if one is cut towards the centre, a very small portion of the heart will sustain the immense trunk. The largest tree we discovered at Russian River was not far from the house. Measuring it six feet above the ground, its circumference was 40 feet, and its height about 200 feet. But in Calaveras county, a group of trees exists which measure respectively, 27 feet, 20 feet, 23 feet, 18 feet, and 16 feet in diameter, and from 200 feet to 250 feet in height. The largest of these was felled and the bark removed to San Francisco, where it was erected in its original position, and formed a capacious room.
The timber of the red-wood is very durable, and is so easily worked that a man needs but an axe, a betel and a few wedges, to convert the largest of them, provided they are free from knots, into planks, rails or clap-boards, and I have seen Barnes fell a huge fellow, and in less than a fortnight he has carried it all away but the boughs and the bark. It is a fine sight to watch one of these trees fall to the axe; leaving the perpendicular at first so leisurely; then gathering impetus as it nears the ground, crushing all it meets, making the earth vibrate with its shock, and sending forth a booming echo, that startles the game far and wide. The bark of the red-wood is perforated in every direction, and with great regularity, by a kind of starling, called, from this peculiarity, carpentaro, or carpenter. These birds form cells in the tree with great assiduity, and deposit therein acorns, which fit very tightly. They are very quaint and noisy, and employ themselves continually, when not fighting, in depositing acorns in the red-woods. You may see a dozen of them clinging to the bark of one tree in the most uncomfortable positions, pecking away, each at a hole. But the carpentaros work for the more lazy portion of creation, and one of their enemies is the beautiful grey squirrel which abounds here. I have often watched a grey squirrel ascend a red-wood; for the birds work in the upper part of the tree. He is immediately surrounded by carpentaros, who, knowing him of old, are at no loss to divine his object, but the open day robber, nothing daunted, at once extracts an acorn, and popping it in his mouth, he turns his head from side to side in the quaintest manner possible, as if to say to the birds that chatter around him, “Pray go on, don’t mind my feelings.� Then down he comes whisking his beautiful silvery tail. Then the carpentaros assemble round the pillaged hole, and scream over the matter so much that you may imagine them to be abusing the squirrel in their choicest slang; and presently up comes grey squirrel again for another acorn, having found the first so good; and then, fresh carpentaros having arrived, the noise becomes so intolerable, that the most enthusiastic of naturalists would walk off with his fingers in his ears. The grizzly bear also takes advantage of the exposed condition of the carpentaro’s winter provision, and climbs the red-wood in much the same fashion as the grey squirrel, though less gracefully; so they say: I never saw a bear in this position, and if unarmed I should not wait to study his habits, if I did; for although naturalists tell us that the bear is graminivorous, there is no doubt that the grizzly would sacrifice all the acorns that grow for a juicy piece of the calf of one’s leg.
The carpentaro has a more destructive enemy than even the squirrel or the bear, and a greater beast than either—the Digger Indian. These miserable specimens of humanity will light a fire at the root of a well-stocked red-wood tree until it falls; they then extract the carpentaro’s acorns and fill many baskets full, which they carry away.
“Eat as much as you like, but pocket none,� the justly indignant carpentaros might say.