I Thought I Should
Catch Him Then, But When I Went Up To Him He Turned Round, Threw
Up His
Heels several times, rushed off the track, galloped in
circles, bucking, kicking, and plunging for some time, and then
throwing
Up his heels as an act of final defiance, went off at
full speed in the direction of Truckee, with the saddle over his
shoulders and the great wooden stirrups thumping his sides, while
I trudged ignominiously along in the dust, laboriously carrying
the bag and saddle-blanket.
I walked for nearly an hour, heated and hungry, when to my joy I
saw the ox-team halted across the top of a gorge, and one of the
teamsters leading the horse towards me. The young man said that,
seeing the horse coming, they had drawn the team across the road
to stop him, and remembering that he had passed them with a lady
on him, they feared that there had
been an accident, and had just saddled one of their own horses to
go in search of me. He brought me some water to wash the dust
from my face, and re-saddled the horse, but the animal snorted
and plunged for some time before he would let me mount, and then
sidled along in such a nervous and scared way, that the teamster
walked for some distance by me to see that I was "all right." He
said that the woods in the neighborhood of Tahoe had been full of
brown and grizzly bears for some days, but that no one was in
any danger from them. I took a long gallop beyond the scene of
my tumble to quiet the horse, who was most restless and
troublesome.
Then the scenery became truly magnificent and bright with life.
Crested blue-jays darted through the dark pines, squirrels in
hundreds scampered through the forest, red dragon-flies flashed
like "living light," exquisite chipmunks ran across the track,
but only a dusty blue lupin here and there reminded me of earth's
fairer children. Then the river became broad and still, and
mirrored in its transparent depths regal pines, straight as an
arrow, with rich yellow and green lichen clinging to their stems,
and firs and balsam pines filling up the spaces between them, the
gorge opened, and this mountain-girdled lake lay before me, with
its margin broken up into bays and promontories, most
picturesquely clothed by huge sugar pines. It lay dimpling and
scintillating beneath the noonday sun, as entirely unspoilt as
fifteen years ago, when its pure loveliness was known only to
trappers and Indians. One man lives on it the whole year round;
otherwise early October strips its shores of their few
inhabitants, and thereafter, for seven months, it is rarely
accessible except on snowshoes. It never freezes. In the dense
forests which bound it, and drape two-thirds of its gaunt
sierras, are hordes of grizzlies, brown bears, wolves, elk, deer,
chipmunks, martens, minks, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and snakes.
On its margin I found an irregular wooden inn, with a
lumber-wagon at the door, on which was the carcass of a large
grizzly bear, shot behind the house this morning. I had intended
to ride ten miles farther, but, finding that the trail in some
places was a "blind" one, and being bewitched by the beauty and
serenity of Tahoe, I have remained here sketching, reveling in
the view from the veranda, and strolling in the forest. At this
height there is frost every night of the year, and my fingers are
benumbed.
The beauty is entrancing. The sinking sun is out of sight behind
the western Sierras, and all the pine-hung promontories on this
side of the water are rich indigo, just reddened with lake,
deepening here and there into Tyrian purple. The peaks above,
which still catch the sun, are bright rose-red, and all the
mountains on the other side are pink; and pink, too, are the
far-off summits on which the snow-drifts rest. Indigo, red, and
orange tints stain the still water, which lies solemn and dark
against the shore, under the shadow of stately pines. An hour
later, and a moon nearly full - not a pale, flat disc, but a
radiant sphere - has wheeled up into the flushed sky. The sunset
has passed through every stage of beauty, through every glory of
color, through riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness,
into a long, dreamy, painless rest, succeeded by the profound
solemnity of the moonlight, and a stillness broken only by the
night cries of beasts in the aromatic forests.
I. L. B.
Letter II
A lady's "get-up" - Grizzly bears - The "Gems of the Sierras" - A
tragic tale - A carnival of color.
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, September 7.
As night came on the cold intensified, and the stove in the
parlor attracted every one. A San Francisco lady, much "got up"
in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds,
rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving
descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang,
without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few
years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity,
owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation
which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect
guy"; and feeling that I was a salient point for the speaker's
next sally, I was relieved when the landlady, a ladylike
Englishwoman, asked me to join herself and her family in the
bar-room, where we had much talk about the neighborhood and its
wild beasts, especially bears. The forest is full of them, but
they seem never to attack people unless when wounded, or much
aggravated by dogs, or a shebear thinks you are going to molest
her young.
I dreamt of bears so vividly that I woke with a furry death hug
at my throat, but feeling quite refreshed. When I mounted my
horse after breakfast the sun was high and the air so keen and
intoxicating that, giving the animal his head, I galloped up and
down hill, feeling completely tireless.
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