The mountains . the open, the trail drewone side to a stage-station. The huge stables, thewide corrals, the low living-houses, each shut in itsdooryard of blazing riotous flowers, were all lacked the old-fashioned Concord coach, fromwhich to descend Jack Hamlin or Judge for Mliss, she was there, sunbonnet and all. Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placerdiggings. Elaborate little ditches for the deflectionof water, long cradles for the separation of gold, de-cayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons andtons of pay dirt which had been turned over poundby po
The mountains . the open, the trail drewone side to a stage-station. The huge stables, thewide corrals, the low living-houses, each shut in itsdooryard of blazing riotous flowers, were all lacked the old-fashioned Concord coach, fromwhich to descend Jack Hamlin or Judge for Mliss, she was there, sunbonnet and all. Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placerdiggings. Elaborate little ditches for the deflectionof water, long cradles for the separation of gold, de-cayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons andtons of pay dirt which had been turned over poundby pound in the concentrating of its treasure. Someof the old cabins still stood. It was all deserted now,save for the few who kept trail for the freighters, orwho tilled the restricted bottom-lands of the racked away down the paths ; squirrelsscurried over worn-out placers; jays screamed andchattered in and out of the abandoned cabins. Strangeand shy little creatures and birds, reassured by the 84. THE FOOT-HILLS silence of many years, had ventured to take to them-selves the engines of mans industry. And the warmCalifornia sun embalmed it all in a peaceful forget-fulness. Now the trees grew bigger, and the hills more im-pressive. We should call them mountains in the covered them to the top, straight slender pineswith voices. The little flats were planted with greatoaks. When we rode through them, they shut outthe hills, so that we might have imagined ourselvesin the level wooded country. There insisted the effectof limitless tree-grown plains, which the warm drowsysun, the park-like landscape, corroborated. And yetthe contrast of the clear atmosphere and the sharp airequally insisted on the mountains. It was a strangeand delicious double effect, a contradiction of naturalimpressions, a negation of our right to generalize fromprevious experience. Always the trail wound up and up. Never was itsteep; never did it command an outlook. Yet wefelt that at las
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwhiteste, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
