They also ate dried grasshoppers and young clover plants cooked as greens.  They ground acorns and manzanita berries into meal with the stone mortars and pestles so commonly found through the countryside and gathered and stored great caches of pine burrs full of nuts for the winter.  They were not as a rule quarrelsome, but — .

* * * * *

“Good morning, Phineas.  I have brought your grub from Auburn, and here is the bill.”

It was a bright day in June and Phineas Longley, tollkeeper for the new suspension bridge on Whiskey Bar, had had a busy morning.  There was a barbecue that day at the town on the other side, and a stream of people had come down the Whiskey Bar turnpike and crossed the bridge.  It was getting warm and he was tired, and he read the bill gloomily: 

“1 bottle gin, $6.00; 2 lbs. biscuits, $2.50; 1 ham, $24.00; 1 bottle pickles, $6.00; 4 fathoms rope, $5.00; 1 watermelon, $4.00; 1 tin pan, $16.00; 2 apples, $3.00.”

Longley stuffed the bill in his pocket, and returned for his noon meal to his log cabin on shore.

It was quite palatial — boasting a real floor made of puncheons, or hewn logs.  A bunk, against the wall, was made of a second log set four feet from the log wall, with a hammock mattress of sacking stuffed with dried bracken stretched between them.  There was the usual huge fireplace of granite rocks used for both warmth and cooking, and a box pantry-cupboard nailed to the wall.

His cup and plate and saucer were of tin, and his cutlery was an iron spoon, a three-tined fork and a hunting dagger.  The dishes had not been washed for weeks.

In warm weather he kept a few things in a small palisade driven in the shallow water at the river ’s edge, which was cool the year ’round.

Longley put his raised bread dough in a frying pan, put a second pan on top, raked the ashes off some coals, and started it baking.  A man on horseback, driving two pack animals before him, stopped at the low doorway.

“Hello, John!  Glad to see you,” called Longley.

“Glad to get here.  Like to sleep in a house again.  Tired of shaking the lizards out of my blankets every morning.”

“Ever shake out a rattler?”

“Not yet, though they say it’s been done more than once.”

“You’re just in time.  Turn the beasts into the corral.  And then will you just ride back to Kitty Douglas’ for me?  She promised me a pie, and I need a new starter for my sour dough (batter).  By that time everything will be ready to eat.”

“You mean the ‘Kitty Douglas’ of the signs I’ve just passed?” asked John, grinning.

“Yes.  What were they, today?”

“‘Fresh pies, by Kitty Douglas,’ ’Bread made every day, by Kitty Douglas,’ ’New-laid eggs every day, by Kitty Douglas’!”

“Kitty’s cooking is as fair as the reputation of her house is not.  She charges two dollars for a meal of pork and beans.”