curvets with the rowels of their huge silver-mounted spurs.

Dark lissome girls raise their velvety eyes and applaud this daring
horsemanship. Senioritas Luisa, Isabel, and Panchita lose no point
of the display. In a land without carriages or roads, the appearance
of the cavalier, his mount, his trappings, most do make the man
shine before these fair slips of Mexican blue blood.

Down on the beach, the boys race their half-broken broncos. These
lads are as lithe and lean as the ponies they bestride. Across the
bay, the Sierras of Santa Cruz lift their virgin crests (plumed with
giant redwoods) to the brightest skies on earth. Flashing brooks
wander to the sea unvexed by mill, unbridged in Nature's unviolated
freedom. Far to north and south the foot-hills stand shining with
their golden coats of wild oats, a memorial of the seeds cast over
these fruitful mesas by Governor Caspar de Portala. He left San
Diego Mission in July, 1769, with sixty-five retainers, and first
reached the Golden Gate.

Beyond the Coast Range lies a "terra incognita." A few soldiers
only have traversed the Sacramento and San Joaquin. They wandered
into the vales of Napa and Sonoma, fancying them a fairyland.

The sparkling waters of the American, the Sacramento, the Yuba,
Feather, and Bear rivers are dancing silently over rift and ripple.
There precious nuggets await the frenzied seekers for wealth. There
are no gold-hunters yet in the gorges of these crystal streams.
Down in Nature's laboratory, radiated golden veins creep along
between feathery rifts of virgin quartz. They are the treasures
of the careless gnomes.