I lost no time in Stockton and headed for Milton in the foot-hills, just across the western boundary of Calaveras County.  The distance was variously estimated by the natives at from twenty to forty miles — Californians are careless about distances, as in other matters.  Subsequently I entered it in my note book as a long twenty-eight.  Eighteen miles out from Stockton, at a place called Peters, which is little more than a railway junction, you leave the cultivated land and enter practically a desert country, destitute of water, trees, undergrowth and with but a scanty growth of grass.  I ate my lunch at the little store and noted with apprehension that the thermometer registered 104 degrees in the shaded porch.  I am not likely to forget that pull of ten miles and inwardly confessed to a regret that I had not taken the train to Milton.  Accustomed on “hikes” to a thirst not surpassed by anything “east of Suez,” I never before appreciated the significance of the word “parched” — the “tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth.”

At Milton one enters the land of romance.  What was even more appreciable at the time, it marks the limit of the inhospitable country I had traversed.  Mr. Robert Donner, the proprietor of the Milton Hotel, told me he once had “Black Bart” as his guest for over a week, being unaware at the time of his identity.  This famous bandit in the early eighties “held up” the Yosemite stage time and again.  In fact, he terrorized the whole Sierra country from Redding to Sacramento.  He was finally captured in San Francisco through a clew obtained from a laundry mark on a pair of white cuffs.  For years, Mr. Donner cherished a boot left by the highwayman in the hurry of departure, which, much to his annoyance, was finally abstracted by some person unknown.  To dispose of Black Bart; he served his term and was never seen again in the Sierras.  There is a rumor that Wells Fargo & Company, the chief sufferers by his activities, made it worth his while to behave himself in the future.

The following day I reached Copperopolis.  This place very justly has the reputation of being one of the hottest spots in the foot-hills.  Owing to resumed operations on a large scale, of the Calaveras Copper Company, I found the little settlement crowded to its fullest capacity, and was perforce compelled to resort to genuine “hobo” methods — in short, I spent the night under the lee of a haystack.  My original intention had been to walk thence to Sonora, twenty-four miles; but finding the road would take me again into the valley, I decided to make for Angel’s Camp, only thirteen miles away.

It is uphill nearly all the way from Copperopolis to Angel’s Camp, but mostly you are in the pine woods.  My spirits rose with the altitude and delight at the magnificent view when I at last reached the summit.  Toiling up the grade in the dust, I met a good old-fashioned four-horse Concord stage, which from all appearances might have been in action ever since the days of Bret Harte.  At last I felt I was in touch with the Sierras.  The driver even honored my bow with an abrupt “Howdy!” which from such a magnate, I took to be a good omen.