We tried coaxing, then whipping, till Dan showed us his heels in a series of most vicious kicks, higher and higher, till we feared he would break some part of the harness, or the surrey itself.
Eventually he did allow himself to be slowly coaxed past, I making myself as broad as possible to try and screen that side of the road, and leading him, and my husband checking his evident desire to bolt after each separate bundle was left behind. By this time it was grey twilight, and when we reached our haven, we had to be satisfied with the simplest arrangements possible for the night.
As we were occupying the rooms which by rights belonged to the horses, they had to be staked out on the open hillside, and during the night Joe managed to get loose and went careering off, up and down and round the barn, so that we were awakened by the clattering of his hoofs. It was a brilliant starlit night, perfectly still and mild, and all the family turned out in their night gear to help to catch him and fasten him up again. It was a curious sensation to be so absolutely alone, and free, with nothing but the great ranges of big bare mountains lying spread out into the far distance.
The absolute stillness was very weird; the smallest sound from miles around reached us in the calm quiet. The plaintive call of the little brown owls had a sad uneasy ring in it, and the coyote’s mocking yelp seemed most uncomfortably near.
The mountain ranges looked so calm and stately and unreachable in the cold clear moonlight, and we felt horribly lonely.
There was one cañon some four miles away, across the Silvero Valley, called Mexican Cañon, and we wondered uneasily whether Indians and Mexicans lived there; for we seemed to be on the very borders of civilisation. When we got to know the neighbourhood better, we found nothing but peaceable ranches, and more ranches far back into the hills.
Returning to the barn we were rather glad to roll the big door to, and close it fast. We crept into our makeshift beds and were asleep before long. But we were awakened with a disagreeable start, hearing right inside the barn a strange cry, which, in our sleepiness and ignorance, might well have been the call of a Red Indian, straight from the Mexican Cañon, intent on securing the scalps of us “tenderfeet.” The cry was repeated, as we sat up listening eagerly, and then we all laughed to see a little squatty figure sitting on one of the open windows, and recognised a harmless little brown owl.
In the morning we made some kind of order and comfort around us. The one large room in the barn (viz., the hayloft) we had divided into two with a temporary screen, one half for our bedroom, the other for sitting- and dining-room. A small shanty had been added outside for kitchen, and a shed which was to receive the cow, when we had one, served meanwhile as bedroom for our “coloured lady.” There was a lower floor which was divided into stalls for the horses, and which was entered by a lower road, as the barn stood on a steep slope.
The fifty cases of furniture, which had been stored at San Francisco till we sent for them, were strewn all about the hill top on which the barn stood, and our first task was to open most of these, take a few things out, and pack away all the rest safely before the rains came.