We left Portland on the night train for San Francisco. I took my , the Captain we called him, into the with me. He was asleep when I placed his basket under my , but about midnight he awoke and squawked frightfully.  
I rang for the porter but before he arrived the Captain had nearly every one in the car. Angry voices were heard inquiring what that “screeching, screaming thing,” was.
 
An old gentleman thrust his red night capped head out of his berth next to mine and angrily demanded of me where that nasty beast came from. When I politely told him he said he wished that I had had the good sense to leave it there. Then he said something that sounded dreadfully like swear words, but being such an old gentleman I’ve no doubt that my ears deceived me.
 
At any rate it was something about sea gulls[161] in general and my own in particular. His red cap disappeared and presently I heard him snoring away up in G. Now my poor gull only squawked on low C. After that the Captain traveled in the baggage car with the trunks and packages.
 
Traveling south from Portland one passes farms and until the foot of the Sierra Nevada range is reached. Most of the farms are well improved. Many of the orchards are bearing, while others are young.
 
Here and there in the mountains are cattle . These mountains are not barren, rocks like the Selkirks of Alaska. Here there is plenty of pasture to the very summit of the mountains.
 
Wolf valley is one vast hay field. Up we go until the far-famed River valley is reached. This noble valley lying in the heart of the Sierras reminds one of the great Mohawk valley of New York.
 
Ashland is the center of this prosperous district. The Southern State Normal School is located here.
 
The seventh annual assembly of the Southern Oregon Chautauqua will in Ashland in July. This assembly is always well attended.[162] Farmers bring their families and camp on the grounds. The program contains the names of musicians prominent on the coast. Among the lecturers are the names of men and women prominent in their special fields. Frank Beard, the chalk talk lecturer, will be present. So you see that the wild and woolly west is not here, but has moved on to the Philippines.
 
When the passenger train stops at the station of Ashland a score of young fruit venders on the platform, crying plums, cherries, peaches and raspberries at fifteen cents a box. When the train-bell rings fruit suddenly falls to ten cents and when the conductor cries “All aboard” fruit takes a downward to five cents a box, but the fruit is all so delicious that you do not feel in the least cheated in having paid the first price. “Look here, you young rascal,” said a newspaper man, who travels over the road frequently to one of the young fruit , “I bought raspberries of you yesterday at five cents a box.” “O no you didn’t, mister, never sold raspberries at five cents a box in my life sir, pon honor.” In less than three minutes this young westerner was crying “Nice ripe raspberries here, five cents a box.” “Why,” said I, “I thought you told[163] the gentleman that you never sold berries at five cents a box.” “No, Madam, I didn’t, pon honor,” and the little rogue really looked innocent.
 
Leaving Ashland with three big engines we climb up four thousand one hundred and thirty feet to the summit of the range.
 
The Rogue River valley spreads out below us in a grand of wheat, oats, fields and orchards. Down the southern slope the commercial interest centers in large saw-mills and cattle ranches.
 
Off to the east lie the beds where Gen. Canby and his companions were so by the Modoc Indians under the leadership of Captain and Scar Faced Charley.
 
Crossing the Klatmath River valley the place in early days of the Klatmath Indians, the engines make merry music as they , puff, puff in a sort of Rhunic rhyme to the whir of the wheels as they and climb three thousand nine hundred feet to the summit of the Shasta range. There is something wonderfully fascinating about mountain climbing. Whether by rail over a route laid out by a skilled engineer; on the back[164] of a donkey over a trail just wide enough for the feet of the little beast, or staff in hand you go slowly up over rocks and bowlders, or around them, clinging to trees and for support. The very fact that the train may without a moment’s notice plunge through a trestle or go its way down the mountain side; the donkey lose his head and take a false step; the break or a bowlder come tearing down the rock-ribbed mountain and crush your life out, thrills the blood and holds the mind as a bird is held by the charm of the pitiless snake.
 
Throughout the mountains mistletoe, that mystic plant of the Druids, hangs from the limbs and trunks of tall trees.
 
It was with an arrow made from mistletoe that Hoder the fair Baldur.
 
All day long snow-covered Mt. Shasta has been in sight and toward evening we pass near it on the southern side of the range and stop at the Shasta Springs. The principal spring is natural soda water. This is the fashionable summer resort of San Francisco people, who come here to get warm, the climate of that city being so disagreeable during July[165] and August that people are glad to leave town for the more air of the mountains.
It certainly is odd to have people living in the heart of a great city ask you during these two months if it is hot out in the country. “Out in the country” means forty or fifty miles out, where there is plenty of heat and sunshine. At Shasta Springs, however, the weather is cooler. The climate is , the water and the strawberries beyond compare. Boteler, known as a lover of strawberries, once said of his favorite fruit: “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.”
 
Just beyond the springs stand the wonderful Castle Crags. Hidden in the very depths of these lofty Crags lies a beautiful lake. This strange old castle of solid , its towers and casting long shadows in the moonlight for centuries, is not without its historic interest, though nor chatelaine dainty ever ruled over it. Joaquin , in the “Battle of Castle Crag,” tells the tale of its border history.
 
Not far away at the base of Battle Rock a battle was once fought between a few[166] whites and the Shasta Indians on one side and the Modoc Indians on the other.
 
The Indians of California say that Mt. Shasta was the first part of the earth created. Surely it is grand enough and beautiful enough to lay claim to this pre-eminence. When the waters the earth became green with vegetation and with the song of birds, the Great Manitou hollowed out Mt. Shasta for a wigwam. The smoke of his fires (Shasta is an extinct volcano) was often seen pouring from the before the white m............