Fortunately these shortcomings seemed insignificant to Mr. I judged, however, that I was in no way the right man for the place, and freely explained my short-comings, confessing that I was wholly unacquainted with the topography of the upper mountains, the streams that would have to be crossed, the wild sheep-eating animals, etc., and in short that what with bears, coyotes, rivers, cañons, and thorny, bewildering chaparral, I feared that half or more of his flock would be lost. These I thought would be good centres of observation from which I might be able to make many telling excursions within a radius of eight or ten miles of the camps, to learn something of the plants, animals, and rocks for he assured me that I would be left perfectly free to follow my studies. The flock, he said, would be moved up gradually through the successive forest belts as the snow melted, stopping a few weeks at the best places we came to. I was in the mood to accept work of any kind that would take me into the mountains, whose treasures I had tasted the previous summer in the Yosemite region. Delaney, a sheep-owner, for whom I had worked a few weeks, called on me, and offered to engage me to go with his shepherd and flock to the head waters of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, the very region I had most in mind. While anxiously brooding on the bread problem, so troublesome to wanderers, and trying to believe that I might learn to live like the wild animals, gleaning nourishment here and there from seeds, berries, etc., sauntering and climbing in joyful independence of money or baggage, Mr. I was longing for the mountains about this time, but money was scarce, and I couldn’t see how a bread-supply was to be kept up.
Then the lolling, panting flocks and herds are driven to the high, cool, green pastures of the Sierra. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven. The spring begins with the first rainstorm, which usually falls in November.
In the great Central Valley of California, there are only two seasons-spring and summer. Read part two here, part three here, and part four here.
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