that we were loth to leave it and return to the city. So we took a vote on the proposition, decided to go into camp for the night at least, and, having dispatched Bill to Calistoga for blankets and cooking apparatus, proceeded to make ourselves at home.
There are always people who will go poking around hunting for trouble and disagreeable things wherever they happen to be. Curse all such people, I say! What is the use of it?
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is the wisest saying between the lids of the bible, and I travel on it. We had one of these people in our party, and he knocked around in the bushes until he found a rattlesnake. It did not bite anybody, and was not looking for anybody to bite, and if it had not been stirred up with a stick and set to rattling, no one would have known it was there. As it was, it frightened the ladies and destroyed the pleasure of the party for hours. More fool the man who found it.
I can recall one incident in my lifetime, and one only, in which snakes had a healthy effect and rendered a service to humanity. Some ten years ago the San Francisco bar numbered among its members many jolly, good fellows, who were given to free indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and not unfrequently passed the limits of prudence, and wrestling too ardently with old King Alcohol, were thrown and severely hurt. Among them was Mike Durfee, now a strictly temperate man, a successful lawyer and an exemplary citizen, after nearly all his old associates have succumbed and passed away. When Mike
