Chapter II



Inception of the Tramp. Stockton to Angel's Camp. Tuttletown and the
"Sage of Jackass Hill"



Following as near as might be the route of the old Argonauts, I avoided
trains, and on a warm summer night boarded the Stockton boat. In the
early morning you are aware of slowly rounding the curves of the San
Joaquin River. Careful steering was most essential, as owing to the dry
season the river was unusually low. The vivid greens afforded by the
tules and willows that fringe the river banks, and the occasional
homestead surrounded by trees, with its little landing on the edge of
the levee, should delight the eye of the artist.

I lost no time in Stockton and headed for Milton in the foot-hills, just
across the western boundary of Calaveras County. The distance was
variously estimated by the natives at from twenty to forty miles -
Californians are careless about distances, as in other matters.
Subsequently I entered it in my note book as a long twenty-eight.
Eighteen miles out from Stockton, at a place called Peters, which is
little more than a railway junction, you leave the cultivated land and
enter practically a desert country, destitute of water, trees,
undergrowth and with but a scanty growth of grass. I ate my lunch at the
little store and noted with apprehension that the thermometer registered