Electronic Book page

Early birds were beginning to flit from tree to tree, singing their
welcome to belated Springtime; a fleecy cloud lazily floating far
overhead gave deeper background to the slender strip of over-arching
blue. It all combined to form a nature picture of primeval peace,
rendered peculiarly solemn by those vast ranges of overshadowing
mountains, and more deeply impressive by the grim silence and
loneliness, the seemingly total absence of human life.
Yet in this the scene was most deceptive. Neither peace nor loneliness
lurked amid those sombre rock shadows; over all was the dominance of
men--primitive, fighting men, rendered almost wholly animal by the
continued hardships of existence, the ceaseless struggle after gold.
The vagrant trail, worn deep between rocks by the constant passage of
men and mules, lay close beside the singing water, while here and there
almost imperceptible branches struck off to left or right, running as
directly as possible up the terraced benches until the final dim traces
were completely lost amid the low-growing cedars.


Pages:
83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107