CHAPTER IV.
When the stage for San Francisco rolled away the next morning with Mr.
Hamlin and the editor, the latter might have recognized in the occupant of a dust-covered buggy that was coming leisurely towards them the tall figure, long beard, and straight duster of his late visitor, Mr.James Bowers.

For Mr.Bowers was on the same quest that the others had just abandoned.

Like Mr.Hamlin, he had been left to his own resources, but Mr.Bowers's resources were a life-long experience and technical skill; he too had noted the topographical indications of the poem, and his knowledge of the sylva of Upper California pointed as unerringly as Mr.
Hamlin's luck to the cryptogamous haunts of the Summit.

Such abnormal growths were indicative of certain localities only, but, as they were not remunerative from a pecuniary point of view, were to be avoided by the sagacious woodman.

It was clear, therefore, that Mr.Bowers's visit to Green Springs was not professional, and that he did not even figuratively accept the omen.
He baited and rested his horse at the hotel, where his bucolic exterior, however, did not elicit that attention which had been accorded to Mr.
Hamlin's charming insolence or the editor's cultivated manner.