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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bobitron" data-source="post: 2046323" data-attributes="member: 25479">Weaving through the early morning traffic, people give your party right of way when the see a US Marshal rides at the front. You make your way to “Sarah’s Kiss”, a well-kept ferry waiting your arrival. The white-washed boat sits proudly in San Francisco Bay, small waves lapping against its hull with quiet slaps. “Ah, Marshal Colburn. Right on time.” A burly Irishman in a white officer’s jacket walks down the plank to meet your party. “Sarah’s Kiss is ready for yer group, as agreed.”You board the vessel, and it makes quick time across the Bay, dropping you off at the opposite bank in short order. With a rigid salute to Colburn and a short bow to the rest of the party, the Irishman starts howling at his crew, getting the ferry turned back into the Bay. San Rafael rises up in the distance, and your long journey north to the Sierra Nevadas has begun.By Colburn’s calculations, you can travel about 20 miles a day. That means a long trek of over two weeks to reach the isolated community. Colburn lays out the basic plan, expecting to stop in a only couple small towns along the way for supplies. The first week of travel will see you pass through Napa and the gentle Sacramento area, and the twelfth day brings you into Shasta County. From there, you will leave the main road and spend a difficult three days circling the southern base of Mount Shasta to reach Deepwood, which lies northeast of the mountain. The first day’s travel passes rather quickly, and with the fall of night you set up camp with the rapidly setting sun glinting off the Bay about a mile distant. After a quick meal of salt pork and beans, you settle in for the night, taking shifts to keep watch.Waking in the morning, you eat a quick breakfast and drink a cup of Arbuckle’s, then mount up. This same routine repeats for days, and by the end of the fifth day, you are bored out of your mind. This is not the busy working travel of a cowhand, the nervous speed of a post rider, or the breakneck pace of a cross country stage, but a numbing movement with no activity. The sun is just starting to dip below the distant Coastal Mountains when a rider appears, one of the few you have seen yet. Nodding a greeting as he rides up, he opens his mouth and speaks with a long Texan’s drawl.“Howdy. Care to share your fire?” Waiting for agreement, he says, “Much obliged, pardners.” He dismounts, his cowboy’s chaps and hat dirty from long days in the saddle.“I’m Grant Buckley. My boys are about a mile behind, driving 300 special-bred cattle to San Francisco from the Bent J ranch up near Red Bluff. Some crazy would-be rancher from back east wants these ones put on a ship bound for Florida, of all places.” Grant shakes his head his quiet disbelief. "Glad to see someone else on the trail, though. These Californians think once it starts getting cold out, a man should stay inside."As he helps you set up camp, a plume of dust rises in the north. “Movin’ right quick, ain’t he?”, Buckley comments curiously.A single young man rides up, pulling his cow pony to a fast stop. “Buckley! The bridge at the Clementine Crossing washed out while the herd was crossing! We need you back up there now!” Buckley’s eyes widen, and he jumps up. “Any of y’all got some skills roundin’ up beefes? We’re short handed as it is, and I could use your help most sorely.”</blockquote>

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