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"It was not by tossing feather balls into the air that the great Hercules gained his strength, but by hurling huge bowlders from mountain tops 'that his name became the synonymn of manly strength. So the harder the struggle the greater the discipline and fitness. If we cannot reach success in one way, let us try another. 'If the mountain will not come to Mahomet let Mahomet go to the mountain."
In due time we spread our blankets in the warm sand between two large bowlders and soon fell asleep.... The wind rose just as we were losing consciousness, and we were lulled to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the shore. It is always very cold on that Lake shore in the night, but we had plenty of blankets and were warm enough.
There south of the stream, the gradual slope of the black range, studded here and there with bowlders that seemed to have rolled down from the precipitous cliffs under which they were now moving, two seasoned old dragoons three hundred yards out to the front, covering the cautious advance.
Here, bowlders, high, square, straight and plumb as an immense hotel, blocked up your way; there, lay an endless level, flat as the palm of your hand, over which your eye might roam in vain in search of something green like a meadow, yellow like a cornfield, or black like ploughed ground a mere boundless waste of dirty white from the stunted wormwood, often rendered misty with the clouds of smarting alkali dust.
They crept among low shrubs and around the bowlders, carefully guarding every slightest movement lest some rustle of disturbed foliage, or sound of loosened stone, might draw the fire of those keen watchers. Nor dared they ignore the close proximity of their own little company, who, amid such darkness, might naturally suspect them for approaching savages.
This, then, was the stage setting: Trenholme, screened by black cedars and luxuriant brushwood, was seated about fifty feet above the level of the lake and some forty yards from its nearest sedges. The lake itself, largely artificial, lay at the foot of the waterfall, which gurgled and splashed down a miniature precipice of moss-covered bowlders.
Thorn looked and saw a big hollow in a gravel hill. The hill was made of sand and clay and pebbles and bowlders. The rain had washed some of the sand and clay away, and the stones had fallen down and now lay in piles on the ground. "Men come from far away for our stone," the old man went on. "It is good stone for axes. They bring us shells and amber and meat and skins for our stone.
Perhaps here was once a torrent flowing from the basin-like hollow walled round with rock; at any rate, great bowlders were scattered all along the rim as though spewed from the basin by some mighty force of the bygone ages.
What the Sioux were to the white men, what the Spider Water is to the bridgemen, that, and more, Pilot has been to the mountain men. "There was no compromise with Pilot even after we got in on it. Snowslides, washouts, bowlders, forest-fires and yet the richest quartz mines in the world lie behind it. This little branch, Mr.
Hoss?" said the quavering voice from these near shadows. "Hoss? 'Deed I don' know all erbout a boss! 'Deed I don't." There was a satirical chuckle. At the end of three miles the mare slackened and the doctor leaned forward, peering, while holding tight reins. The wheels of the buggy bumped often over out-cropping bowlders. A window shone forth, a simple square of topaz on a great black hill-side.
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