The Valley of the Giants | Page 2

of virgin timber that had already attained a
vigorous growth when Christ was crucified. In their vast, sombre
recesses, with the sunlight filtering through their branches two hundred
and fifty feet above, one hears no sound save the tremendous diapason
of the silence of the ages; here, more forcibly than elsewhere in the
universe, is one reminded of the littleness of man and the glory of his

creator.
In sizes ranging from five to twenty feet in diameter, the brown trunks
rise perpendicularly to a height of from ninety to a hundred and fifty
feet before putting forth a single limb, which frequently is more
massive than the growth which men call a tree in the forests of
Michigan. Scattered between the giants, like subjects around their king,
one finds noble fir, spruce, or pines, with some Valparaiso live oak,
black oak, pepper-wood, madrone, yew, and cedar.
In May and June, when the twisted and cowering madrone trees are
putting forth their clusters of creamy buds, when the white blossoms of
the dogwoods line the banks of little streams, when the azaleas and
rhododendrons, lovely and delicate as orchids, blaze a bed of glory, and
the modest little oxalis has thrust itself up through the brown carpet of
pine-needles and redwood-twigs, these wonderful forests cast upon one
a potent spell. To have seen them once thus in gala dress is to yearn
thereafter to see them again and still again and grieve always in the
knowledge of their inevitable death at the hands of the woodsman.
John Cardigan settled in Humboldt County, where the sequoia
sempervirens attains the pinnacle of its glory, and with the lust for
conquest hot in his blood, he filed upon a quarter-section of the timber
almost on the shore of Humboldt Bay--land upon which a city
subsequently was to be built. With his double-bitted axe and crosscut
saw John Cardigan brought the first of the redwood giants crashing to
the earth above which it had towered for twenty centuries, and in the
form of split posts, railroad ties, pickets, and shakes, the fallen giant
was hauled to tidewater in ox-drawn wagons and shipped to San
Francisco in the little two-masted coasting schooners of the period.
Here, by the abominable magic of barter and trade, the dismembered
tree was transmuted into dollars and cents and returned to Humboldt
County to assist John Cardigan in his task of hewing an empire out of a
wilderness.
At a period in the history of California when the treasures of the
centuries were to be had for the asking or the taking, John Cardigan
chose that which others elected to cast away. For him the fertile wheat

and fruit-lands of California's smiling valleys, the dull placer gold in
her foot-hill streams, and the free grass, knee deep, on her cattle and
sheep-ranges held no lure; for he had been first among the Humboldt
redwoods and had come under the spell of the vastness and antiquity,
the majesty and promise of these epics of a planet. He was a big man
with a great heart and the soul of a dreamer, and in such a land as this it
was fitting he should take his stand.
In that wasteful day a timber-claim was not looked upon as valuable.
The price of a quarter-section was a pittance in cash and a brief
residence in a cabin constructed on the claim as evidence of good faith
to a government none too exacting in the restrictions with which it
hedged about its careless dissipation of the heritage of posterity. Hence,
because redwood timber-claims were easy to acquire, many men
acquired them; but when the lure of greener pastures gripped these men
and the necessity for ready money oppressed, they were wont to sell
their holdings for a few hundred dollars. Gradually it became the
fashion in Humboldt to "unload" redwood timber-claims on thrifty,
far-seeing, visionary John Cardigan who appeared to be always in the
market for any claim worth while.
Cardigan was a shrewd judge of stumpage; with the calm certitude of a
prophet he looked over township after township and cunningly
checkerboarded it with his holdings. Notwithstanding the fact that
hillside timber is the best, John Cardigan in those days preferred to buy
valley timber, for he was looking forward to the day when the timber
on the watersheds should become available. He knew that when such
timber should be cut it would have to be hauled out through the valleys
where his untouched holdings formed an impenetrable barrier to the
exit! Before long the owners of timber on the watersheds would come
to realize this and sell to John Cardigan at a reasonable price.
Time passed. John Cardigan no longer swung an axe or dragged a
cross- cut saw through a fallen redwood. He