Part 34

The story has scarcely been concluded, when we are called to our homeward-bound train. It is just at sunset--the western horizon a fountain of fiery gold seen through a saffron veil of ineffable splendor. The air seems to become saturated--thick with color throughout the whole space between us and the horizon. The mountains shine through this veil in a sharply defined mass, not a single feature visible, but their whole silhouette washed in with a flat tint of marvelous softness and inimitable delicacy. Yet it changes, almost every instant, and gradually, as the orb disappears behind the island, and the cloth of gold laid down for his feet across the lake, is drawn away, the island-hills and the jagged sierras beyond settle into cold ashy blue, and the coolness of approaching night already fans our cheeks.

* * * * *

Another day we made an excursion up into the cañon of the Little Cottonwood to Alta--a mining town known all round the world. The place is not only entertaining in itself, but in its neighborhood are a large number of easily accessible gorges, lakes and hilltops full of artistic material and of trout fishing; or, if the tourist goes late in the season, of good shooting and ample opportunity for dangerous adventures in mountaineering. The Little Cottonwood is one of those great crevices between the peaks of the Wasatch range plainly visible from Salt Lake City, and distinguished by its white walls, which when wet with the morning dews gleam like monstrous mirrors as the sunlight reaches them from over the top of the range.

We took the early morning train down to Bingham Junction, so called because branch roads diverge here, not only to Alta, our destination, but also to Bingham, a mining camp opposite, in the Oquirrh, which has attracted much attention in the past and still has very profitable mines, with many peculiarities of great interest to the specialist. Here at the Junction stood awaiting us a locomotive heading a train made up of almost every kind of car known to rolling stock. Whisked away past fields of lucerne we were quickly climbing the foothill benches and entering the mouth of the cañon, where the train came to a standstill underneath an ore-shed and alongside of a beer-saloon. In front of the saloon stood on slender rails two or three of the queerest vehicles it was ever my fortune to ride in. If you can imagine the body of a three-seated sleigh, with its curled up splash-board, mounted upon a hand-car and rigged with a miniature "boot" behind, you will have an idea of these vehicles in which we were to finish our trip up the eight miles of cañon remaining. The motive power consisted of two black mules, harnessed tandem, and the driver was the conductor of the train, who disguised himself so effectually in a big hat and bigger duster that it was a long time before we discovered his identity.

The walls of this cañon are extremely lofty, and in places almost vertical. Though in crevices and ledges here and there some fearless bushes and trees have maintained a foothold, yet there are large spaces of almost upright slope, wholly bare of the least soil or vegetation, and smoothed by the waters that drip over them, the sliding avalanches that sweep their faces, and the fierce winds that polish them under streams of sharp-grained dust. Whiter precipices I have never seen, and the rock lies in long layers, that in the case of sedimentary rocks we would call strata, inclined at a very steep angle against the higher heart of the range within. Here, too, are the usual lines of cross-cleavage, and in these lines, as well as between the layers, water finds itself able to penetrate more or less easily. Hence the frost during past ages has slowly cracked off great masses of exposed cliff and hurled them down. This rock does not crumble, as would the lavas, but falls in masses, and with these the bottom of the cañon has been gradually filled up. The water of the creek finding its way over and among the great pieces, never ceases to be a cataract, or has a moment rest from its foaming haste; and our tramway squirmed and dodged among angular fragments, each as big as a house, which had fallen so recently as yet to be lying on top of the ground.

It is by splitting to pieces these great detached droppings of the cliff--solid fragments of the original granite cliff,--that the contractors get the fine building stone of the Mormon temple in the city. There is no need to open any quarries. It is only necessary to drill and blast these big stones lying on the surface, and the demands of a hundred temples would not exhaust the supply. Men were at work as we passed, splitting out blocks that were dragged by stoneboats, or sent along the tramway down to where they could be loaded upon the railroad cars. Until three years ago every bit of this stone was hauled all the way to Salt Lake City by bullock teams, and the great expense and labor account both for the large expense and the slow progress of the mighty structure.

A mile or so above Wasatch station, the tramway entered a snow-shed; and with momentary exceptions, it never got out of it for seven miles. To the sight-seer this was discouraging; but it was compensated by the coolness, for in the stillness of the cañon, the sunshine, reflected from the dazzling walls, was fiercely hot, and our occasional emergences into it was like passing before the door of a blast furnace. These sheds are said to have cost one hundred thousand dollars, though the timber was close at hand and sawed in the cañon. They were necessary, for this is a gorge famous for its depth of snowfall and its avalanches. It required two hours to toil through the sheds and at the end we found as peculiar a scene of human life as could well be imagined. The cañon "heads" here, in an almost complete circle of heights, some of which reach, stark and splintered, far above timber-line. At the disbandment of General Connor's regiment of Californian troops in 1863, they scattered through the mountains and among other places came here. Prospecting the higher slopes, silver ore was discovered, and a host of miners came in, and began digging on all the hills. The famous "Emma," the "Flag Staff," and dozens of other mines were opened. A town, well-called _Alta_ (high), sprang up, and filled all the level land at the head of the valley, while buildings, and machinery and dumps dotted the mountain sides to their topmost ridges. Long paths had marked the ruin of avalanches before this, but when, to supply timber for the mines and the cabins, the mountain sides were denuded of their forests, large areas of deep snow became loosened in every great storm, and slid with crushing force, tearing up and carrying everything before it, to the bottom of the slope. Once the whole corner of the town was swept clean away; again and again miners lost their buildings at their tunnel entrances. Little work could be done in winter yet many stayed in Alta, isolated from the world, and at the mines, and many and many a one lost his life, to have his body found in a horrible condition when the winter was over. Then in the spring, when the frost was loosening the ground, and the melting snow was pouring a thousand waterfalls down the sides of the cañon, the snowslides were succeeded by the giving away of masses of soil and loose rocks, which came headlong into the bottom of the cañon. One such avalanche of rocks was pointed out to us which had slid down the opposite mountain with such force as to carry it clear across, and almost a hundred feet up the hither slope, sweeping away the tramway, sheds and all.

Meanwhile the original owners of the mines had sold them in the most prominent cases, for enough to make the men wealthy. Companies had been formed, the stock had been put upon the market, and the usual history of a mining camp was gone through. The "Emma," in the hands of a company of English capitalists, was made notorious by litigation, and for a long time was shut down. Now, however, a new era is beginning. Work has been resumed on many lodes that for years have been idle, and arctic Alta may yet range herself among the foremost silver-producing localities of the territory. We were all glad we went up there, yet were quite ready at four o'clock to return.

When we took our seats in the little sleigh-like car, no mules stood sedately tandem in front of it; and before we understood that we were ready, behold we were off! It was merely the loosening of a brake, and the car began to roll swiftly down the track. That was an exhilarating ride! Whisking round the curves, rattling through long tunnels, dodging out into the sunlight to catch a glimpse of a sparkling waterfall, or a bit of plain seen away down the cañon, then back again into the tunnel, where gophers and chip-munks and cotton tails were continually perking up their heads and then scuttling into some small cave of refuge as we rushed past--on and on, down and down in the face of the stiff breeze and under lofty walls, without an instant's check, until we glided into the little terminus, just twenty-five minutes out of Alta!

But our gravity railroading was not done yet. A small passenger car stood at the head of the railway track by which we had come up from the valley. As soon as we had entered it, our jolly driver-conductor (there was no gravity about him!) loosened the brake and we rushed off again like the ghost of a train, without engine or engineer, and went spinning down the tortuous track for a dozen miles to Bingham Junction. It was just as good fun as coasting--and better, for you didn't have to drag your own sled back up hill again.

XXXVII

AU REVOIR.

End things must, end howsoever things may. --BROWNING.

This was our last excursion, and all three of us knew it as we gathered in our own coach again at Bingham Junction.

"At last," remarks Madame, cheerfully--she is thinking that before many more days an apple-cheeked little damsel in far New England will be back in her arms--"we have come, sir, to the final chapter. The emptiness of your utmost corner-pigeon-hole will reproach you no longer. A few days more and _Finis_ will be written across the completed manuscript, and our glorious cruise will be a thing of the past. Meanwhile, sir, remember your 'Cochelunk,'--

'Act, act in the living present, Heart within and God o'er head.'"

"For instance?" I ask, after this homily.

"Observe, and make a note of, these great meadows of rich grass and the russet areas where hay has been cut. Note how, among the plumey masses left standing scarlet flowers are burning like coals--I wonder if prairie fires ever originate from their igniting the dry and feathery stalks! See how the Jordan flows stately down the center of this wide mountain trough, its banks crowded with farmhouses, each in its little copse of trees. Long lines of Lombardy poplars mark the boundaries of many farms and willows show where the big irrigating ditches pass or rivulets trickle. All these things are of the highest interest, and imply a mass of statistics you ought busily to gather and carefully to record in tables of precise and copious information."

"Eh?" I say.

What is the matter with the Madame? Is she making fun of somebody whom she ought to hold in a respect almost amounting to awe? Feeling that I ought to assert myself I gently hint that this is my affair, and her help is uncalled for in the matter of book-making; that her own department is wide enough for all her energies; and that--

But here Chum interrupts in that strix-like way of his which always so commands attention that one must listen whether or no.

This young man is possessed of a family heirloom in the shape of several hundred traditions of a more or less mythical grandfather. Some of these tales are distinctly poetical, while none of them are prosy. It is one of the traditions coined in the ingenious brain of this talented old gentleman with which we are now regaled, _apropos_ of the matter in hand.

The old gentleman, it appears, was once--but let his heir-apparent--

"Who," the Madame interrupts maliciously, "has very little hair apparent."

"Let him," I say, ignoring the insinuation, "tell his own story."

"Why it was this way, as you very justly remark. The old gentleman was once captured by the Indians, who, instead of scalping him, decided to make him a beast of burden. They, therefore, loaded him down with cooking utensils, the most prominent article of which was the useful, but heavy frying-pan known in the vernacular as 'skillet.' Each Indian deposited upon my grandfather's venerable and enduring back, his skillet. The old gentleman dare not protest, but meekly submitted and trudged off under his Atlas-like burden. After two hours hard marching, however, he resolved to argue the question, so he shouted imperatively,

"'Halt!'

"The Indians paused in wonder. The venerable victim climbed upon a fallen tree and delivered his famous forensic effort, as follows:

"'Mr. Injuns! I have a proposition to make. _I move that every Injun carry his own skillet._'

"The modesty and yet fairness of this proposition met with an enthusiastic reception and every Indian after that 'carried his own skillet,' which commendable example it would be well for all to follow."

"That's a good story!" I remarked. "A good moral story! This expedition, my dear Madame, was for fun, not for geographical pedantry; and my book shall make no pretense to be a cyclopædia, a guide, or a useful companion of any sort, but just a jolly story of a care-forgetting vacation. If it jogs the curiosity, whets the appetite, nerves the fingers, weak through long toil in tying, and untying purse strings, to come and see what _we_ have seen, that is all the effect that can be expected; and this much done, the traveller who follows our uncertain trail will find out far more for himself than we ever could hope to tell him. Seeing Colorado, no matter how briefly,

'Of her bright face, one glance will trace A picture on the brain, And of her voice in echoing hearts A sound must long remain.'

"But here we are at Salt Lake, and home again, for one more gay dinner in the red-walled car; one more gay evening under the cool stars; one more night's rest in the queer little stateroom. To-morrow, Chum, old 'friend and fellow-student,' in lonely grandeur you will be taking the long-to-be-remembered 'special' swiftly back to Denver; while the Madame and I are rolling away to the Golden Gate. Fill your glasses. And what shall the toast be? The God-wrought landscape we have seen? The wide-awake people we have known? The splendid railroad whose achievements we know and of whose hospitality we have partaken? The glorious 'good times' we've had? The stores of health we have laid away? Ay, all these and more. Let us toast each other; and then--

GOOD NIGHT!"

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The approximate position of each illustration, including any caption text, is shown as [Illustration: caption]. Those which occur in the middle of paragraphs are positioned at the nearest paragraph break.

Punctuation is sometimes missing from the images used to create this text, and has been restored. Normally, there is space where the punctuation was intended. Commas are sometimes vestigial, appearing as full stops, and have also been restored, without further comment. On occasion the punctuation is simply incorrect, and has been changed to follow the conventions elsewhere.

For example, from p. 81:

"... or deep blue, or washed with an amethystine tint[,/.] Arching over all bends the cloudless azure of the canopy."

or, from p. 237:

so here it is, or at least so much of it as relates to the boy[:]

The few instances of the 'oe' ligature have been rendered as separate characters.

Spelling is not entirely consistent and is left as printed, with the exceptions noted below. Hyphenation of compound words varies. Where the sole instance appears on a line break, the hyphen is generally retained.

The word 'height' was spelled twice as 'hight' (p. 225 & 316), and both instances were retained. The caption of the image on p. 21 is spelled 'PHEBE', but appears as 'PHOEBE' in the list of illustrations. It is also retained.

The following table summarizes any other obvious printer's errors that have been corrected. It also includes a number of dubious spellings or questionable usage. Misspellings in quoted text are retained.

p. 15 mig[r]atory Added.

p. 175 I've hooked him Added.

p. 237 as it relates to the boy[:] Added.

p. 238 [(]until my husband bought him a cap) Added.

p. 281 the easter[n]most buttress Added.

p. 285 reconnoisance _sic_

p. 303 and beh[e/o]ld the mountains of Utah. Corrected.

p. 309 a strange, [wierd], grand region _sic_

p. 314 catatrophe/catastrophe Corrected.

p. 315 Wel[c]hmen _sic_

p. 315 chara[c]teristic Corrected.

p. 319 eq[u]ally Added.

p. 320 a[t/s] they called the redskins Corrected.

p. 320 su[r]burban Removed.

p. 321 Brewer's [grakle] _sic_

p. 336 the Mediterranean is considerably [salter] _sic_ than the open Atlantic

p. 339 and our occasional emergenc[i]es into it Corrected.