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Show California" stories. The I5t uf the Mustang Grtoslles end Frontiersmen. The mountains of San Luis Obispo otfer Bome of the strangest frontier scenes and types to be found on the Pacific coast. The region was one of tho last strongholds strong-holds of the native Californians. Helen Hunt Jackson collected a good deal of material a few months before her death v in the old town of San Luis, from the Spanish priests there, and would perhaps have written auother California novel if6hehad had one more year of life. She thought that the region combined to a remarkable degree tho peculiar charms of northern and southern California, and she often spoke of its "waste wealth of literary material." My thoughts were turned to San Luis the other day by the news from there that a man had found a band of wild horses in tho mountains and had captured cap-tured about twenty in a corral. There are four or five bands of wild horses that take care of themselves in tho unfenced mountains of the upper Sierras, but none in the coast range, north of San Luis. They are descended from Spanish "mustangs," "mus-tangs," and are as wild and worthless for any kind of work as it is possible to im-. im-. agine. In one case, in early times, a Spanish land owner was persuaded to buy an American plow and sow some wheat. He had four or five mustangs tied to the plow beam, put boys on the mustangs, and ran them across tho fields with several Indians hanging to the plow bandies. Every now and then the mustangs mus-tangs flew out on the plowed ground and kicked "for all they were worth." Aft a little while tho old Don was heard to say: "What men these Americans are! How hard they work for nothing!" And ao he went back to his brush harrow. One of the characters of San Luis died a short time ago. He was a frontiersman, frontiers-man, known over thousands of square mfles of mountain and valley as "Uncle Billy of Josephine." He was a griszled giant, certainly the coolest and strongest man in the region, and he kept a post-office post-office and a store. He was a blacksmith, a school trustee, and a few things besides, be-sides, especially a wheel horse at camp meetings. Onenighttwo Mexican miners tried to rob the old man. The door was shut, bat he threw the foremost Mexican through the panels into the road, and then, putting his arms about the three others, shoved them en masse through the splinters and fragments of the broken door. "One or two of them Mexicans stuck their knives into me," said Uncle Billy afterward, "but I never allowed I was hurt, and after they were throwed out they crawled away." In fact, one knife thrust was clear through his arm; but, on the other hand, he crippled most of the Mexicans for life. There were plenty of grizrlies around the mountains fifteen years ago, and I hear of them, even now. Every one in the mountains has an immense respect ' for the grizzly. An old frontiersman J tells me that a few years ago ha was 1 hunting stray cattle, and he came on a new settlor's cabin beside an oak in a mountain valley. He stayed with the settler over night, sleeping in a blanket before the fire. During the night they heard a great noise outside. The settler looked out and reported that a large bear was at the meat safe, which hung under the oak tree. The frontiorsman was asked to shoot it, but said he would not risk it, with only a revolver and a shotgun. shot-gun. The wife of the settlor remarked that they were both cowards, and she would drive it off with a broom. They locked the door, prevented her from going out, and shortly after heard the meat safe fall and roll into the gulch. In the morning they found that an old horse had become entangled in the ropes of the meat safe, and finally torn it down in his struggles and dragged it down the ravine. The old frontiersman and the new settler were obliged in self defence to retire to the headwaters of tho San Antonio within a week and stay there until they had killed a grizzly apiece. New York Tribune, |
