[Illustration]

Muir Woods


June, to me, is one of the most fascinating months in California--if
any of them can be set apart and called more perfect than another--for
June is a month of moods.

If you are an Easterner you would abandon your proposed picnic party,
upon rising in the morning, for fear of rain, and, being a tenderfoot,
you would be justified, for the clouds--or, more properly speaking,
the high fog--give every indication of a shower. But an old
Californian would tell you to take no thought of appearances, and to
leave your umbrella and raincoat at home, for this is one of nature's
"bluffs"; by ten o'clock the sun will be shining brightly, and the fog
dispersed under its warm rays.

Then pack your lunch basket, don your khaki suit, and strike out on
the trail, while the dew still twinkles on the grass blades like cut
diamonds, and the birds are singing their _Te Deum_ to the morning
sun.

It was on just such a day that we set out on a trip to Muir Woods and
the giant sequoias, one of the most beautiful spots in the State. From
Mill Valley the climb is a steep one, passing the picturesque ruins of
an old mill erected in 1843. We come to a sort of corduroy path, where
some enterprising landowner has placed logs across the trail, with the