in making my way from Rubio Cañon to the crest of the highest peak along the route which you traveled with so much pleasure to-day in less than 90 minutes. I headed every surveying party that went out in the interest of the enterprise. I have personally directed all the operations that have required engineering skill and experience; I have expended almost one and a half millions of dollars, and my work isn’t completed yet.” “That is an enormous sum of money to invest in a venture, or rather an experiment, that you don’t know will pay till you try it,” I ventured to assert, while secretly admiring the indomitable courage and spirit of the man. “Yes, it is a great deal of money,” was the reply, and I imagined that a sigh accompanied the words. “As a financial scheme I believe it will be a failure. I have no hope of ever getting out of it what money I have put in it, but to me this is only a secondary matter. I’ve watched a vague visionary dream grow into a bright reality; I’ve had cherished theories, condemned as insane and impracticable, converted into substantial facts; I have solved the greatest engineering and mechanical problems that ever taxed the brain of man; I’ve won the hardest, toughest intellectual battle that ever was fought; I’ve had an all-absorbing ambition gratified, and I feel that I have, in a measure, got the worth of my money.” As the professor ceased speaking there was a bright look in his eye and a happy expression on his countenance as though it were a great pleasure to reflect on the great work he had accomplished. The car was approaching his destination; he arose to go and extended his hand. As I took it he said, “When you come again you can extend your ride to the summit of the mountain, for I propose to complete the work in a short time; and you must stay longer, for in your hurried trip to-day there is much you didn’t see, and I would wish that you could see it all; goodbye.” The car stopped and he was gone. As he disappeared from view I said to myself, “There goes a wonderful man.”
Continuing a few blocks further we left the car and visited the Chamber of Commerce and spent half an hour among its interesting relics and curiosities. When we reach our train the most of our people are there, the time for starting being almost up. We bid adieu to the kind friends we have made while here, and who did all they could to make our short stay a pleasant one, and at 5.00 P. M. Eastern (2.00 P. M. Pacific) we pull out of the station at Los Angeles bound for San Francisco and the “Golden Gate,” 482 miles away.
We are still on the Southern Pacific’s famous “Sunset Route,” which we have followed since leaving Sierra Blanca. S. P. engine No. 1826 is pulling us, with Engineer Charlie Hill at the throttle. She is fired by E. Homes, who has a hard task on hand, for there are steep grades to climb and our train is heavy. William Perkins is conducting the train; the brakemen are J. B. Freet and F. W. Bunnell. These three gentlemen are brothers of the “Order” and members of El Capitan Division No. 115, of San Francisco. They are members of the entertainment committee from that division and have been selected to run our train that they may be able to look after our welfare. J. C. Fielding, also a member of El Capitan Division and of the committee, is a guest on the train, along with Brother Twist,
of Golden Gate Division No. 364, of Oakland, Cal., also a member of the committee.
Following the course of Los Angeles River as we leave the “City of Angels” behind us, we pass for quite a distance through a fine farming country, where hundreds of acres of barley are being gathered for hay into great heaps and stacks.
“Brother Freet,” I ask, as we sit near the wide-open door of the baggage compartment looking out on the fleeting landscape, “do they feed their stock altogether on barley hay in California?” “Not entirely. What makes you think so?” is the inquiring answer. “It looks so from the fact that in all the arable country we have passed through since entering this State, outside of fruit and flower culture, I have noticed no other product than barley, with the exception of a few patches of alfalfa grass,” I reply. “You are right,” is the response, “so far as concerns that part of the country you have seen; although if you traverse the State from end to end you will see comparatively little of it. There are sections of California where abundant crops of corn are raised, but while it has never achieved distinction as a corn producing State, it is second to no State in the Union in its yield of wheat. The entire area of the State of Indiana would be insufficient to cover the wheat fields of California, which yielded last year almost 40,000,000 bushels; but speaking of barley, cut as it is in a green state after the grain has formed and cured for hay, it makes a valuable and nourishing food for stock, upon which they will fatten without additional grain feed.”