By stage we travel through the Napa Valley to the geyser fields. On either hand are groves of redwood trees, cousins of the Giant Sequoias. In the springtime the odor of the buckeye fills the delicious morning air, just now the handsome eschscholtzias, commonly called the California poppy, brighten the meadows. Here and there lichen stained rocks lend a deeper tone to the landscape.
Through this valley of strange wild beauty we arrive at the Devil’s Cañon. The nomenclature of this weird place is something audacious and one wishes that he might change it. Here the hero of the cañon has his kitchen, his soup bowl, his punch bowl, and his ink pot. In this spring you might dip your pen and write tales of magic that would rival those of India.
Here, one dreary night, a lonely discouraged miner who had lost his way, sat in meditation, when presently a strangely clad figure approached him. The dark face wore a sinister expression, black eyes sparkled under villainous brows.
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the stranger when he discovered the miner.
“What would’st thou? Riches? Sign here and they are thine, or thou may’st toss me into yon caldron.”
Flinging aside the long black cloak that enveloped his figure he stood forth, his scarlet robes gleaming a fiery red in the black night.
“Sign here,” and dipping his fire tipped pen into the ink pot he thrust it into the hand of the astonished miner, presenting a scroll of parchment for the signature.
“Ha, ha, ha,” came in tones diabolical, as the fortune hunter seized the pen in his eager grasp. Knowing better how to wield the pick than the pen he seized the scroll and—made the sign of the cross.
His Satanic Majesty gave an unearthly yell, seized the pen and scroll, and disappeared leaving his ink-pot behind.
The prevailing rocks are metamorphic, sandstone, silicious slates and serpentine. The stratification dips sharply to the bed of Pluton Creek.