Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/626



held a sunrise more glorious, more majestic than ever tinted the billows of a tropical sea. Below us, on that summer's dawn, the whole landscape, touched by the first rose hue of day, appeared like nature's own Eden. The sun's rays that came dancing over the eastern mountain ridges first touched the bright leaves of the madrona, lighting them with a glory fire; then they leaped upon the manzanita bushes and their dark berries; then on the sturdy old oaks grouped about the hillsides and the vales like firm old pioneers. They lighted also on a flock of crows that went flitting and cawing over the valley, burnishing their wings and backs with a glossy glow; then they illuminated the dark firs and pines, towering over all like stately sentinels doing guard duty, their pointed needles brightened with the radiance; and then the whole valley, with its parks and gardens, the pine-clad mountains at the foot of which the winding river runs, blazed up with the morning light, awakened, embellished, glorified. The great sun stood over the Cascades' snow-clad ranges. To the south, Preston Peak and Little Grayback's white caps sparkled in splendor—and it was broad day.

"Isn't it great! Isn't it great!" Charlie exclaimed, as we two sat enchanted in our saddles, and with bared heads admired the changing grandeur of the scene below us.

"It is, indeed," I answered. "I never realized this country was so all-fired beautiful before." Then we lighted our pipes and moved on, for we had a long journey before us. We crossed the river by ferry and reached Galice Creek by mid-afternoon. Here the wagon road ends. But we took up the trail and dived deeper into the mountain depths, camping at night by the river's brink.

But the wild country, the rough country, is still farther on, three days' travel from the railroad. The river makes a detour to the right and misses Mount Reuben by a narrow margin.

After the first day we found naught but an unbroken wilderness, and had to keep to the ridges or become help-