"constitutionally improvident," and a debt-burdened life is not easy.
His later years were pathetic. Those who knew and appreciated him
remember him fondly. California failing to know him, wrongs herself.

Charles A. Murdock.



Preface



A desire to obtain, at first hand, any possible information in regard to
reminiscences of Bret Harte, Mark Twain and others of the little coterie
of writers, who in the early fifties visited the mining camps of
California and through stories that have become classics, played a
prominent part in making "California" a synonym for romance, led to
undertaking the tramp of which this brief narrative is a record. The
writer met with unexpected success, having the good fortune to meet men,
all over eighty years of age, who had known - in some cases intimately
Bret Harte, Mark Twain, "Dan de Quille," Prentice Mulford, Bayard Taylor
and Horace Greeley.

It seems imperative that a relation of individual experiences - however
devoid of stirring incident and adventure - should be written in the
first person. At the same time, the writer of this unpretentious story
of a summer's tramp cannot but feel that he owes his readers - should he
have any an apology for any avoidable egotism. His excuse is that, no
twit notwithstanding ding the glamour attaching to the old mining towns,
it is almost incredible how little is known of them by the average