The west shore., January 01, 1887, Image 41

THE HERMIT OF THE SISKIYOUS.
flMIERE stood, a quarter of a century the shifting kaleidoscope of life brought
I ago, in the henrt of the Siskiyou for a brief period iu enntnet with the po
mountains, a rudo cabin of ole8 culiar and mysterious being who built
and bniBU, thatchexl with closely packed and occupied thin rudo habitation,
branches of young firs! The exact loca- The Siskiyou mountains lie on the
tion matters little, for the iron finger of border line of California and Oregon,
Time has effaced all traces of its exist- stretching westward from Uio Cascades
ence, and demonstrated the mutability to the Coast range. They form the di
of all things terrestrial, even in those viding ridge between two great rivers,
mountain Bolitudes. Many years ago both of which have cleft deep passages
the poles and brush were swept by a through the obstructing Coast range,
landslide into the noisy, dashing stream and jxmr their annual tlotxls in deep,
flowing through the gulch at the base of rapid and turgid streams between the
the hill, far up on whose side stood the lofty walls of rugged rock which confine
cabin, while a giant fir, whoso grasp them to their narrow channels. The
upon, the earth was thus loosened till it Klamath, in California, and the Uoguo,
succumbed to the power of the west in Oregon, are alike in all their essen
wind and toppled to the earth, now lies tial features, turbulent, impetuous and
prostrate and broken across the site of unnavigabln. From the dividing ridge
this once humble habitation. Even the of the Siskiyous, each receives a inulti
rudo trail that wound tortuously through tudo of allluents, both small and great,
the dense forest and along the bank of which pour down in noisy hasto from
the rapid stream, is now so completely their birthplace amid the springs and
obliterated by the rains and snows, so meltiug snows of the mountain summits,
blocked by fallen trees and masses of On many of these streams gold was dis
earth and rock, brought down the moun- covered early in the " fifties," and for a
tains' steep sides by the melting snows nurnW of years every )end and flat was
and copious rains of each vernal season, the scene of mining operations of the
that he would indeed le well skilled in primitive rocker or long-sluice charac
woodcraft who could successfully trace ter. In some of these localities, where
it from the old mining camp whence it the extent of mining ground was corn
started, Borne four miles down-stream, to paratively largo, or which were so loca
the site of the vanished hut Time was t-d as to be a convenient central point
when this desolate spot was the center for several outlying districts, quite cx
of an alsorbing interest for scores of tensive "camps" sprang up and flour
human lings; but now few know that ihd for several years. Home of these
it ever existed, and fewer its exact loca- have still a sort of jo mortrm existence,
tion, while the incident I am alxmt to though the great majority of thern have
relate has already been relegated to the lost all material being, ami are rapidly
domain of fiction or legendary romance, falling into the olwtirity of things for
save by the few survivors of those whom gotten.