At Mooretown, Butte county, situated many thousands of feet above sea level, occurred one of the most prophetic episodes I ever experienced. It was somewhere near the middle of the month when I reached there, and the night was particularly brilliant under the radiant glare of a full October moon. Suddenly there was a darkened aspect, and in a seemingly magical way, as hardly any of the mountaineers had been made aware of the approaching phenomena, the heavens took on a murky appearance, and in an incredibly short space of time the lunar orb, which only a few moments previously had appeared so attractive to the eye as it floated majestically across the skies, was enshrouded by a pall of inky blackness, bringing me to a full realization of the fact that we were passing through the famous total eclipse of the moon of that year, and the event, unheralded as it seemed to be in a way, certainly made a deep impression upon me.
"It is the hand of destiny," I thought. "A shadow on the wall of coming events from Washington."
By the time I reached Quincy, the county seat of Plumas county, the whole country was ablaze with the report that President Roosevelt had issued an executive proclamation making provisional suspension of a vast extent of territory for forest reserve purposes, covering hundreds of square miles, and embracing millions of acres in the very heart of the affected district, and I felt absolutely certain that his action meant the beginning of the end of the reign of the looters, and that the Chief Executive of the nation, inspired by the instincts of providential power, had cast a mantle of suspension over this vast area that promised to eclipse every fraudulent effort to acquire its titles.
Under the provisions of the order of suspension, all further entries of public lands in the Susanville district were prohibited until such time as the Land
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