The Mountains
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Stewart Edward White >> The Mountains
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We descended the great box canon, and scaled its
upper end, following near the voices of a cascade.
Cliffs thousands of feet high hemmed us in. At the
very top of them strange crags leaned out looking
down on us in the abyss. From a projection a colossal
sphinx gazed solemnly across at a dome as smooth
and symmetrical as, but vastly larger than, St. Peter's
at Rome.
The trail labored up to the brink of the cascade.
At once we entered a long narrow aisle between regular
palisaded cliffs.
The formation was exceedingly regular. At the
top the precipice fell sheer for a thousand feet or so;
then the steep slant of the debris, like buttresses,
down almost to the bed of the river. The lower parts
of the buttresses were clothed with heavy chaparral,
which, nearer moisture, developed into cottonwoods,
alders, tangled vines, flowers, rank grasses. And away
on the very edge of the cliffs, close under the sky,
were pines, belittled by distance, solemn and aloof,
like Indian warriors wrapped in their blankets watching
from an eminence the passage of a hostile force.
We caught rainbow trout in the dashing white
torrent of the river. We followed the trail through
delicious thickets redolent with perfume; over the
roughest granite slides, along still dark aisles of forest
groves, between the clefts of boulders so monstrous
as almost to seem an insult to the credulity. Among
the chaparral, on the slope of the buttress across the
river, we made out a bear feeding. Wes and I sat
ten minutes waiting for him to show sufficiently
for a chance. Then we took a shot at about four
hundred yards, and hit him somewhere so he angled
down the hill furiously. We left the Tenderfoot to
watch that he did not come out of the big thicket of
the river bottom where last we had seen him, while
we scrambled upstream nearly a mile looking for a
way across. Then we trailed him by the blood, each
step one of suspense, until we fairly had to crawl in
after him; and shot him five times more, three in the
head, before he gave up not six feet from us; and
shouted gloriously and skinned that bear. But the
meat was badly bloodshot, for there were three bullets
in the head, two in the chest and shoulders, one
through the paunch, and one in the hind quarters.
Since we were much in want of meat, this grieved
us. But that noon while we ate, the horses ran down
toward us, and wheeled, as though in cavalry formation,
looking toward the hill and snorting. So I put
down my tin plate gently, and took up my rifle, and
without rising shot that bear through the back of the
neck. We took his skin, and also his hind quarters,
and went on.
By the third day from Granite Basin we reached
the end of the long narrow canon with the high cliffs
and the dark pine-trees and the very blue sky.
Therefore we turned sharp to the left and climbed
laboriously until we had come up into the land of
big boulders, strange spare twisted little trees, and
the singing of the great wind.
The country here was mainly of granite. It out-
cropped in dikes, it slid down the slopes in aprons,
it strewed the prospect in boulders and blocks, it
seamed the hollows with knife-ridges. Soil gave the
impression of having been laid on top; you divined
the granite beneath it, and not so very far beneath it,
either. A fine hair-grass grew close to this soil, as
though to produce as many blades as possible in the
limited area.
But strangest of all were the little thick twisted
trees with the rich shaded umber color of their trunks.
They occurred rarely, but still in sufficient regularity
to lend the impression of a scattered grove-
cohesiveness. Their limbs were sturdy and reaching
fantastically. On each trunk the colors ran in streaks,
patches, and gradations from a sulphur yellow,
through browns and red-orange, to a rich red-umber.
They were like the earth-dwarfs of German legend,
come out to view the roof of their workshop in the
interior of the hill; or, more subtly, like some of the
more fantastic engravings of Gustave Dore.
We camped that night at a lake whose banks
were pebbled in the manner of an artificial pond, and
whose setting was a thin meadow of the fine hair-
grass, for the grazing of which the horses had to bare
their teeth. All about, the granite mountains rose.
The timber-line, even of the rare shrub-like gnome-
trees, ceased here. Above us was nothing whatever
but granite rock, snow, and the sky.
It was just before dusk, and in the lake the fish
were jumping eagerly. They took the fly well, and
before the fire was alight we had caught three for
supper. When I say we caught but three, you will
understand that they were of good size. Firewood
was scarce, but we dragged in enough by means of
Old Slob and a riata to build us a good fire. And
we needed it, for the cold descended on us with the
sharpness and vigor of eleven thousand feet.
For such an altitude the spot was ideal. The lake
just below us was full of fish. A little stream ran
from it by our very elbows. The slight elevation was
level, and covered with enough soil to offer a fairly
good substructure for our beds. The flat in which
was the lake reached on up narrower and narrower to
the foot of the last slope, furnishing for the horses an
admirable natural corral about a mile long. And the
view was magnificent.
First of all there were the mountains above us,
towering grandly serene against the sky of morning;
then all about us the tumultuous slabs and boulders
and blocks of granite among which dare-devil and
hardy little trees clung to a footing as though in
defiance of some great force exerted against them; then
below us a sheer drop, into which our brook plunged,
with its suggestion of depths; and finally beyond those
depths the giant peaks of the highest Sierras rising
lofty as the sky, shrouded in a calm and stately peace.
Next day the Tenderfoot and I climbed to the
top. Wes decided at the last minute that he hadn't
lost any mountains, and would prefer to fish.
The ascent was accompanied by much breathlessness
and a heavy pounding of our hearts, so that we
were forced to stop every twenty feet to recover our
physical balance. Each step upward dragged at our
feet like a leaden weight. Yet once we were on the
level, or once we ceased our very real exertions for a
second or so, the difficulty left us, and we breathed
as easily as in the lower altitudes.
The air itself was of a quality impossible to
describe to you unless you have traveled in the high
countries. I know it is trite to say that it had the
exhilaration of wine, yet I can find no better simile.
We shouted and whooped and breathed deep and
wanted to do things.
The immediate surroundings of that mountain
peak were absolutely barren and absolutely still.
How it was accomplished so high up I do not know,
but the entire structure on which we moved--I cannot
say walked--was composed of huge granite
slabs. Sometimes these were laid side by side like
exaggerated paving flags; but oftener they were up-
ended, piled in a confusion over which we had
precariously to scramble. And the silence. It was so
still that the very ringing in our ears came to a
prominence absurd and almost terrifying. The wind
swept by noiseless, because it had nothing movable to
startle into noise. The solid eternal granite lay heavy
in its statics across the possibility of even a whisper.
The blue vault of heaven seemed emptied of sound.
But the wind did stream by unceasingly, weird
in the unaccustomedness of its silence. And the sky
was blue as a turquoise, and the sun burned fiercely,
and the air was cold as the water of a mountain spring.
We stretched ourselves behind a slab of granite,
and ate the luncheon we had brought, cold venison
steak and bread. By and by a marvelous thing
happened. A flash of wings sparkled in the air, a brave
little voice challenged us cheerily, a pert tiny rock-
wren flirted his tail and darted his wings and wanted
to know what we were thinking of anyway to enter
his especial territory. And shortly from nowhere
appeared two Canada Jays, silent as the wind itself,
hoping for a share in our meal. Then the Tenderfoot
discovered in a niche some strange, hardy alpine
flowers. So we established a connection, through these
wondrous brave children of the great mother, with
the world of living things.
After we had eaten, which was the very first thing
we did, we walked to the edge of the main crest and
looked over. That edge went straight down. I do
not know how far, except that even in contemplation
we entirely lost our breaths, before we had fallen half
way to the bottom. Then intervened a ledge, and in
the ledge was a round glacier lake of the very deepest
and richest ultramarine you can find among your
paint-tubes, and on the lake floated cakes of
dazzling white ice. That was enough for the moment.
Next we leaped at one bound direct down to some
brown hazy liquid shot with the tenderest filaments
of white. After analysis we discovered the hazy
brown liquid to be the earth of the plains, and the
filaments of white to be roads. Thus instructed we
made out specks which were towns. That was all.
The rest was too insignificant to classify without the
aid of a microscope.
And afterwards, across those plains, oh, many,
many leagues, were the Inyo and Panamit mountains,
and beyond them Nevada and Arizona, and
blue mountains, and bluer, and still bluer rising,
rising, rising higher and higher until at the level of the
eye they blended with the heavens and were lost
somewhere away out beyond the edge of the world.
We said nothing, but looked for a long time.
Then we turned inland to the wonderful great titans
of mountains clear-cut in the crystalline air. Never
was such air. Crystalline is the only word which will
describe it, for almost it seemed that it would ring
clearly when struck, so sparkling and delicate and
fragile was it. The crags and fissures across the
way--two miles across the way--were revealed
through it as through some medium whose transparence
was absolute. They challenged the eye, stereoscopic
in their relief. Were it not for the belittling
effects of the distance, we felt that we might count
the frost seams or the glacial scorings on every granite
apron. Far below we saw the irregular outline
of our lake. It looked like a pond a few hundred
feet down. Then we made out a pin-point of white
moving leisurely near its border. After a while we
realized that the pin-point of white was one of
our pack-horses, and immediately the flat little scene
shot backwards as though moved from behind and
acknowledged its due number of miles. The miniature
crags at its back became gigantic; the peaks
beyond grew thousands of feet in the establishment
of a proportion which the lack of "atmosphere" had
denied. We never succeeded in getting adequate
photographs. As well take pictures of any eroded
little arroyo or granite canon. Relative sizes do not
exist, unless pointed out.
"See that speck there?" we explain. "That's a
big pine-tree. So by that you can see how tremendous
those cliffs really are."
And our guest looks incredulously at the speck.
There was snow, of course, lying cold in the hot
sun. This phenomenon always impresses a man when
first he sees it. Often I have ridden with my sleeves
rolled up and the front of my shirt open, over drifts
whose edges, even, dripped no water. The direct
rays seem to have absolutely no effect. A scientific
explanation I have never heard expressed; but I
suppose the cold nights freeze the drifts and pack
them so hard that the short noon heat cannot penetrate
their density. I may be quite wrong as to my
reason, but I am entirely correct as to my fact.
Another curious thing is that we met our mosquitoes
only rarely below the snow-line. The camping
in the Sierras is ideal for lack of these pests. They
never bite hard nor stay long even when found. But
just as sure as we approached snow, then we renewed
acquaintance with our old friends of the north woods.
It is analogous to the fact that the farther north you
go into the fur countries, the more abundant they become.
By and by it was time to descend. The camp lay
directly below us. We decided to go to it straight,
and so stepped off on an impossibly steep slope
covered, not with the great boulders and granite blocks,
but with a fine loose shale. At every stride we
stepped ten feet and slid five. It was gloriously near
to flying. Leaning far back, our arms spread wide to
keep our balance, spying alertly far ahead as to where
we were going to land, utterly unable to check until
we encountered a half-buried ledge of some sort, and
shouting wildly at every plunge, we fairly shot
downhill. The floor of our valley rose to us as the earth
to a descending balloon. In three quarters of an hour
we had reached the first flat.
There we halted to puzzle over the trail of a mountain
lion clearly printed on the soft ground. What
had the great cat been doing away up there above
the hunting country, above cover, above everything
that would appeal to a well-regulated cat of any size
whatsoever? We theorized at length, but gave it
up finally, and went on. Then a familiar perfume
rose to our nostrils. We plucked curiously at a bed
of catnip and wondered whether the animal had
journeyed so far to enjoy what is always such a treat to
her domestic sisters.
It was nearly dark when we reached camp. We
found Wes contentedly scraping away at the bearskins.
"Hello," said he, looking up with a grin. "Hello,
you dam fools! I'VE been having a good time. I've
been fishing."
THE GIANT FOREST
XVIII
THE GIANT FOREST
Every one is familiar, at least by reputation and
photograph, with the Big Trees of California.
All have seen pictures of stage-coaches driving in
passageways cut through the bodies of the trunks;
of troops of cavalry ridden on the prostrate trees. No
one but has heard of the dancing-floor or the dinner-
table cut from a single cross-section; and probably
few but have seen some of the fibrous bark of
unbelievable thickness. The Mariposa, Calaveras, and
Santa Cruz groves have become household names.
The public at large, I imagine, meaning by that
you and me and our neighbors, harbor an idea that
the Big Tree occurs only as a remnant, in scattered
little groves carefully fenced and piously visited by
the tourist. What would we have said to the information
that in the very heart of the Sierras there grows
a thriving forest of these great trees; that it takes
over a day to ride throughout that forest; and that
it comprises probably over five thousand specimens?
Yet such is the case. On the ridges and high
plateaus north of the Kaweah River is the forest I
describe; and of that forest the trees grow from fifteen
to twenty-six feet in diameter. Do you know what
that means? Get up from your chair and pace off
the room you are in. If it is a very big room, its
longest dimension would just about contain one of the
bigger trunks. Try to imagine a tree like that.
It must be a columnar tree straight and true as the
supports of a Greek facade. The least deviation from
the perpendicular of such a mass would cause it to
fall. The limbs are sturdy like the arms of Hercules,
and grow out from the main trunk direct instead of
dividing and leading that main trunk to themselves,
as is the case with other trees. The column rises with
a true taper to its full height; then is finished with
the conical effect of the top of a monument.
Strangely enough the frond is exceedingly fine, and
the cones small.
When first you catch sight of a Sequoia, it does
not impress you particularly except as a very fine
tree. Its proportions are so perfect that its effect is
rather to belittle its neighbors than to show in its true
magnitude. Then, gradually, as your experience
takes cognizance of surroundings,--the size of a
sugar-pine, of a boulder, of a stream flowing near,--
the giant swells and swells before your very vision
until he seems at the last even greater than the mere
statistics of his inches had led you to believe. And
after that first surprise over finding the Sequoia
something not monstrous but beautiful in proportion has
given place to the full realization of what you are
beholding, you will always wonder why no one who
has seen has ever given any one who has not seen an
adequate idea of these magnificent old trees.
Perhaps the most insistent note, besides that of
mere size and dignity, is of absolute stillness. These
trees do not sway to the wind, their trunks are
constructed to stand solid. Their branches do not bend
and murmur, for they too are rigid in fiber. Their
fine thread-like needles may catch the breeze's whisper,
may draw together and apart for the exchange
of confidences as do the leaves of other trees, but if
so, you and I are too far below to distinguish it.
All about, the other forest growths may be rustling
and bowing and singing with the voices of the air;
the Sequoia stands in the hush of an absolute calm.
It is as though he dreamed, too wrapt in still great
thoughts of his youth, when the earth itself was
young, to share the worldlier joys of his neighbor, to
be aware of them, even himself to breathe deeply.
You feel in the presence of these trees as you would
feel in the presence of a kindly and benignant sage,
too occupied with larger things to enter fully into
your little affairs, but well disposed in the wisdom
of clear spiritual insight.
This combination of dignity, immobility, and a
certain serene detachment has on me very much the
same effect as does a mountain against the sky. It is
quite unlike the impression made by any other tree,
however large, and is lovable.
We entered the Giant Forest by a trail that
climbed. Always we entered desirable places by
trails that climbed or dropped. Our access to
paradise was never easy. About halfway up we met five
pack-mules and two men coming down. For some
reason, unknown, I suspect, even to the god of
chance, our animals behaved themselves and walked
straight ahead in a beautiful dignity, while those
weak-minded mules scattered and bucked and scraped
under trees and dragged back on their halters when
caught. The two men cast on us malevolent glances
as often as they were able, but spent most of their
time swearing and running about. We helped them
once or twice by heading off, but were too thankfully
engaged in treading lightly over our own phenomenal
peace to pay much attention. Long after
we had gone on, we caught bursts of rumpus ascending
from below. Shortly we came to a comparatively
level country, and a little meadow, and a rough sign
which read
"Feed 20C a night."
Just beyond this extortion was the Giant Forest.
We entered it toward the close of the afternoon,
and rode on after our wonted time looking for feed
at less than twenty cents a night. The great trunks,
fluted like marble columns, blackened against the
western sky. As they grew huger, we seemed to
shrink, until we moved fearful as prehistoric man
must have moved among the forces over which he
had no control. We discovered our feed in a narrow
"stringer" a few miles on. That night, we, pigmies,
slept in the setting before which should have stridden
the colossi of another age. Perhaps eventually, in
spite of its magnificence and wonder, we were a little
glad to leave the Giant Forest. It held us too rigidly
to a spiritual standard of which our normal lives were
incapable; it insisted on a loftiness of soul, a dignity,
an aloofness from the ordinary affairs of life, the
ordinary occupations of thought hardly compatible with
the powers of any creature less noble, less aged, less
wise in the passing of centuries than itself.
XIX
ON COWBOYS
Your cowboy is a species variously subdivided.
If you happen to be traveled as to the wild
countries, you will be able to recognize whence
your chance acquaintance hails by the kind of saddle
he rides, and the rigging of it; by the kind of rope
he throws, and the method of the throwing; by the
shape of hat he wears; by his twist of speech; even
by the very manner of his riding. Your California
"vaquero" from the Coast Ranges is as unlike as
possible to your Texas cowman, and both differ from
the Wyoming or South Dakota article. I should be
puzzled to define exactly the habitat of the "typical"
cowboy. No matter where you go, you will find
your individual acquaintance varying from the type
in respect to some of the minor details.
Certain characteristics run through the whole tribe,
however. Of these some are so well known or have
been so adequately done elsewhere that it hardly
seems wise to elaborate on them here. Let us assume
that you and I know what sort of human beings cowboys
are,--with all their taciturnity, their surface
gravity, their keen sense of humor, their courage,
their kindness, their freedom, their lawlessness, their
foulness of mouth, and their supreme skill in the
handling of horses and cattle. I shall try to tell you
nothing of all that.
If one thinks down doggedly to the last analysis,
he will find that the basic reason for the differences
between a cowboy and other men rests finally on
an individual liberty, a freedom from restraint either
of society or convention, a lawlessness, an accepting
of his own standard alone. He is absolutely self-
poised and sufficient; and that self-poise and that
sufficiency he takes pains to assure first of all. After
their assurance he is willing to enter into human
relations. His attitude toward everything in life is, not
suspicious, but watchful. He is "gathered together,"
his elbows at his side.
This evidences itself most strikingly in his terseness
of speech. A man dependent on himself naturally
does not give himself away to the first comer.
He is more interested in finding out what the other
fellow is than in exploiting his own importance. A
man who does much promiscuous talking he is likely
to despise, arguing that man incautious, hence weak.
Yet when he does talk, he talks to the point and
with a vivid and direct picturesqueness of phrase
which is as refreshing as it is unexpected. The
delightful remodeling of the English language in Mr.
Alfred Lewis's "Wolfville" is exaggerated only in
quantity, not in quality. No cowboy talks habitually
in quite as original a manner as Mr. Lewis's Old
Cattleman; but I have no doubt that in time he
would be heard to say all the good things in that
volume. I myself have note-books full of just such
gorgeous language, some of the best of which I have
used elsewhere, and so will not repeat here.[4]
[4] See especially Jackson Himes in The Blazed Trail;
and TheRawhide.
This vividness manifests itself quite as often in the
selection of the apt word as in the construction of
elaborate phrases with a half-humorous intention. A
cowboy once told me of the arrival of a tramp by
saying, "He SIFTED into camp." Could any verb be
more expressive? Does not it convey exactly the
lazy, careless, out-at-heels shuffling gait of the hobo?
Another in the course of description told of a saloon
scene, "They all BELLIED UP TO the bar." Again, a
range cook, objecting to purposeless idling about his
fire, shouted: "If you fellows come MOPING around
here any more, I'LL SURE MAKE YOU HARD TO CATCH!"
"Fish in that pond, son? Why, there's some fish
in there big enough to rope," another advised me.
"I quit shoveling," one explained the story of his
life, "because I couldn't see nothing ahead of
shoveling but dirt." The same man described ploughing
as, "Looking at a mule's tail all day." And one of
the most succinct epitomes of the motifs of fiction
was offered by an old fellow who looked over my
shoulder as I was reading a novel. "Well, son," said
he, "what they doing now, KISSING OR KILLING?"
Nor are the complete phrases behind in aptness. I
have space for only a few examples, but they will
illustrate what I mean. Speaking of a companion
who was "putting on too much dog," I was informed,
"He walks like a man with a new suit of WOODEN
UNDERWEAR!" Or again, in answer to my inquiry as to a
mutual acquaintance, "Jim? Oh, poor old Jim! For
the last week or so he's been nothing but an
insignificant atom of humanity hitched to a boil."
But to observe the riot of imagination turned loose
with the bridle off, you must assist at a burst of anger
on the part of one of these men. It is mostly
unprintable, but you will get an entirely new idea of
what profanity means. Also you will come to the
conclusion that you, with your trifling DAMNS, and
the like, have been a very good boy indeed. The
remotest, most obscure, and unheard of conceptions
are dragged forth from earth, heaven, and hell, and
linked together in a sequence so original, so gaudy,
and so utterly blasphemous, that you gasp and are
stricken with the most devoted admiration. It is genius.
Of course I can give you no idea here of what
these truly magnificent oaths are like. It is a pity,
for it would liberalize your education. Occasionally,
like a trickle of clear water into an alkali torrent, a
straight English sentence will drop into the flood. It
is refreshing by contrast, but weak.
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