Where the Gray Squirrel Hides [pp. 61-70]

OVERLAND MONTHLY
Photo by T. A. Templeton
THE HOTEL
resorts people go not to worship nature,
but to see and be seen by their kind. They
play tennis and golf, swim in warmed tanks,
drive behind fine horses, dress for dinner,
and do all these things in the conventional
and polite way, and in them "they have their
reward."
This article, however, is addressed to
people of a different sort, to those who desire when they go into the country to get close
to nature,who love to break their way through
thickets of manzanita brush for the sake of
of finding-some untrodden glade, where they
may lie on a cushion of moss or fallen leaves,
and watch the glisten of the sunlight on the
madrofio leaves or its varied play through
the foliage of a great white oak, or hear the
murmur of the bree7,ze in the pine needles.
They love to find the shy flowers of the fri
A GREETING AT THE FRONT GATE
tillaria, the columbine, and the mountain
mariposa, and many more that it puzzles
them to name. They delight to meet the
woodland creatures, bird, beast, and reptile,
and to study natural history at first hand.
Perhaps the sportsman instinct is strong in
them and they love to lure the wary trout
from his hole beneath the little fall caused
by the roots of a great tree or an obstructing bowlder, or to shoot squirrels, doves,
quail, or rabbits. They may even have ambitions to bring in a deer, a "spike" or a
"two pointer," from the chemise-covered
hillside.
For such people there are springing up in
various parts of California little resorts,
farmhouses, country hotels, places away
from main lines of travel, away even from
regular stage routes, where these things
are to be found in perfection. Northern
Mendocino has many of these scattered
through the little valleys that separate the
wooded mountains which corrugate its surface.
I do not propose to mention them all, or
any except enough to give a local habitation
to the incidents I shall relate. They may
be distinguished from the fashionable resorts very easily,- it is simply a question
of price. When a resort charges ten dollars a week or over, shun it as you would a
pestilence, — that is, if you are of the nature-loving sort, for the rate is proof positive of an amount of vogue, and a sophistication destructive of the virgin charms of
country hospitality and unde filed nature.
At the real rural "hotel"
there is more freedom, almost,
than in camp; for all the care
of cooking and making of
beds are taken from your
hands, and you are free to
wander when and where you
will. If you are one of a
party, even of three or four,
you can easily take up all
the available space of the
house, and so be the only
guests, to whose desires all
things are made to conform.
You may set the time for
meals as you will, day by
day, and regulate all your
uprisrisings and downsittings.
Within liberal limits you may
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