Then he kindly invited me to camp with him,
and led me to his little cabin, situated at the foot of the mountains,
where a small spring oozes out of a bank overgrown with wild-rose
bushes. After supper, when the daylight was gone, he explained that he
was out of candles; so we sat in the dark, while he gave me a sketch of
his life in a mixture of Spanish and English. He was born in Mexico, his
father Irish, his mother Spanish. He had been a miner, rancher,
prospector, hunter, etc., rambling always, and wearing his life away in
mere waste; but now he was going to settle down. His past life, he said,
was of "no account," but the future was promising. He was going to "make
money and marry a Spanish woman." People mine here for water as for
gold. He had been running a tunnel into a spur of the mountain back of
his cabin. "My prospect is good," he said, "and if I chance to strike a
good, strong flow, I'll soon be worth $5000 or $10,000. For that flat
out there," referring to a small, irregular patch of bouldery detritus,
two or three acres in size, that had been deposited by Eaton Creek
during some flood season,--"that flat is large enough for a nice
orange-grove, and the bank behind the cabin will do for a vineyard, and
after watering my own trees and vines I will have some water left to
sell to my neighbors below me, down the valley.
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