likely named; for these towns in the New World begin with a firm
resolve to grow larger, Washington and Broadway, and then First and
Second, and so forth, being boldly plotted out as soon as the
community indulges in a plan. But, in the meanwhile, all the life
and most of the houses of Calistoga are concentrated upon that
street between the railway station and the road. I never heard it
called by any name, but I will hazard a guess that it is either
Washington or Broadway. Here are the blacksmith's, the chemist's,
the general merchant's, and Kong Sam Kee, the Chinese laundryman's;
here, probably, is the office of the local paper (for the place has
a paper--they all have papers); and here certainly is one of the
hotels, Cheeseborough's, whence the daring Foss, a man dear to
legend, starts his horses for the Geysers.

It must be remembered that we are here in a land of stage-drivers
and highwaymen: a land, in that sense, like England a hundred
years ago. The highway robber--road-agent, he is quaintly called--
is still busy in these parts. The fame of Vasquez is still young.
Only a few years go, the Lakeport stage was robbed a mile or two
from Calistoga. In 1879, the dentist of Mendocino City, fifty
miles away upon the coast, suddenly threw off the garments of his
trade, like Grindoff, in The Miller and his Men, and flamed forth
in his second dress as a captain of banditti. A great robbery was
followed by a long chase, a chase of days if not of weeks, among
the intricate hill-country; and the chase was followed by much
desultory fighting, in which several--and the dentist, I believe,
amongst the number--bit the dust. The grass was springing for the
first time, nourished upon their blood, when I arrived in
Calistoga. I am reminded of another highwayman of that same year.
"He had been unwell," so ran his humorous defence, "and the doctor