At each turn the vista showed a loftier uprise,
crest peering above crest, and far beyond, high and snow-touched, the
summits of the Sierra. The shadows slanted cool from wall to wall, the
air was fresh and scented with the forest's resinous breath. Across
the tree tops, dense as the matted texture of moss, the winged shadows
of hawks floated, and paused, and floated again.
Here on a knoll under a great pine they pitched the tent. At its base
the river ran, dwindled to a languid current, the bared mud banks
waiting for their picks. The walls of the canon drew close, a drop of
naked granite opposite, and on the slopes beyond were dark-aisled
depths, golden-moted, and stirred to pensive melodies. The girl
started to help, then kicked aside the up-piled blankets, dropped the
skillets into the mess chest, and cried:
"Oh, I can't, I want to look and listen. Keep still--" The men
stopped their work, and the music of the murmurous boughs and the
gliding water filled the silence. She turned her head, sniffing the
forest's scents, her glance lighting on the blue shoulders of distant
hills.
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