Possibly the oldest building in Grass Valley is the Western Hotel.  It is so hidden in the surrounding trees that it was with difficulty I took a photograph in which any portion of the hotel itself appeared.  In the garden stands a splendid English walnut over forty years old; and on the porch, the well and pump to which I have before alluded as a distinguishing feature of the old-time hostelry, add a quaint and characteristic touch.

Grass Valley and Nevada City are nearly three thousand feet above sea level.  The air, in consequence, is light and pure and the heat seldom excessive.  It would be difficult, the world over, to find a more agreeable or salubrious climate.

It was with genuine regret that I left Grass Valley the following morning; not even Sonora possessed for me a stronger attraction.  As I paused on the summit of the hill, for a farewell view of the town, I mentally resolved — the Fates permitting — I would pay another and more protracted visit to this land of enchantment.

Chapter VII

Grass Valley to Smartsville.  Sucker Flat and its Personal Appeal.

I was heading due west for Smartsville, just across the line in Yuba County.  In four miles, I came to Rough and Ready, once a famous camp.  Save for the inevitable hotel, now used in part as a store, there was nothing to suggest the cause of its pristine glory or the origin of its emphatic designation; today it is simply a picturesque, rural hamlet.  In Penn Valley, a mile or two farther on, I passed a smashed and abandoned automobile, the second wreck I had encountered.  I thanked my star I traveled afoot; heavy going, it is true, in places, but safe and sure.

Notwithstanding the ubiquity of the autocar, it is still a fact that between the man in the car and the man on foot is set an impassable gulf.  You are walking through a mountainous country, where every bend of the road reveals some new charm; absorbed in silent enjoyment of the scene, you have forgotten the very existence of the machine, when a raucous “honk” jolts you out of your daydream and causes you to jump for your life.  In a swirl of dust the monster engulfs you, leaving you the dust and the stench of gasoline as souvenirs, but followed by your anathemas!  This doubtless is where the man in the car thinks he has scored.  Perhaps he has.  When the dust on the road has settled and you have rubbed it out of your eyes, once more you forget his existence.

But the very speed with which he travels is the reason why the man in the car misses nearly all the charm of the country through which he is passing.  On this tramp I took forty-odd photographs, all more or less of historical interest.  Riding in an automobile, many of the subjects I would not have noticed or, if I had, I would not have been able to bring my camera into play.  On several occasions I retraced my steps a good quarter of a mile, feeling I had lost a landscape, or street scene I might never again have the opportunity to behold.