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LIFE AMONGST THE MODOCS

UNWRITTEN HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

SHADOWS OF SHASTA.

ONELY as God, and white as a winter moon, Mount Shasta starts up sudden and solitary from the heart of the great black forests of Northern California. You would hardly call Mount Shasta a part of the Sierras ; you would say rather that it is the great white tower of some ancient and eternal wall, with here and there the white walls overthrown.

It has no rival ! There is not even a snow-crowned subject in sight of its dominion. A shining pyramid in mail of everlasting frosts and ice, the sailor sometimes, in a day of singular clearness, catches glimpses of it from the sea a hundred miles away to the west ; and it may be seen from the dome of the capital 300 miles distant. The immigrant coming from