enabled to dismount without an effort; but Juanita having naught save her own sweet will to guide her since I had lost the rein, turned aside, went through a picket-fence, caromed on a market-vegetable cart which stood in the field, and went down with a crash which sounded in my sensitive ears like that which will in due time announce the final dissolution of the universe. When I recovered my senses I was sitting in a potato-patch, solitary in my glory, like Marius, with the ruins of Carthage around me. Thus we made our triumphal entry into San Rafael.
We repaired to the hotel, bound up and anointed our smarting wounds, sent out a party to gather in our traps, which had been scattered all along the road, then held a council of war. We did not feel much like going forward, in truth, but then we were ashamed to go back, and advance we must. With much inquiry and diligent search, we found a native who knew the trail to the top of Tamalpais, and was willing, for a consideration, to pilot us there next day. The sum demanded for his services was more than he had honestly earned before in his entire lifetime, but we needed him, and were at his mercy.
Sunrise saw us all in the saddle. We found that during the night, lumps of the size of acorns, hickory nuts, even black walnuts, had grown on those saddles just where we found it most inconvenient to have them, but were forced to grin and bear the infliction as best we might. After a half-mile ride through the fields, we came in sight of a flock of quail running along in the road ahead, and a halt along the entire
