Part 26 (1/2)

The recital of Custer's deeds nerved Alfonso to renewed efforts to win Christine's hand. He declined with thanks to join the captain's excursion party, and early next day rode south into the upper basin of the Park, which contains over 400 springs and geysers; many of the springs in their peculiar shapes, translucent waters, and variety and richness of color, are of exquisite beauty. Alfonso visited emerald and sapphire springs, where it is said nymphs, elfs, and fairies came to bathe, and don their dainty dress of flowers and jewelled dew drops.

Many bronzed tourists had a.s.sembled, and their faces showed amazement as they watched giant geysers in action. Suddenly the solid earth is tremulous with rumbling vibrations, like those that herald earthquakes.

Frightful gurgling sounds are audible in the geyser's throat. Sputtering steam is visible above the cone, the water below boils like a cauldron, and scalding hot, the eruption becomes terribly violent, belching forth clouds of smoke-like steam, and hurling rocks into the air as though a mortar of some feudal stronghold had been discharged. The stupendous column of hot water is veiled in spray as it mounts towards heaven.

Boiling water is flowing in brooks to the Firehole River, which is soon swollen to a foaming torrent was.h.i.+ng away the bridges below. The valley is filled with dense vapors, and the air is laden with sulphurous fumes, while the hoa.r.s.e rumblings and subterranean tremors chill the heart.

Beneath your feet are positive evidences of eternal fires, and all about you the might of G.o.d. Alfonso was glad to leave this region of the supernatural.

He hastened across the Snake River, which winds through Idaho, and pushed on towards the Teton Range, one of many that form the Rocky Mts. In sight are snow-touched sentinel peaks kissed by earliest and latest sun. The Rocky Mts. or Great Continental Divide is a continuation of the famous Andes of South America, and jointly they form the longest and most uniform chain of mountains on the globe. Amid the gorges of this system of mountains, over 3000 miles in length, America's largest rivers have their birth, and find their outlet into the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans.

These mountains are vast vaults that will hold in trust for centuries to come untold supplies of precious metal for the American nations. This general fact did not concern Alfonso. He was ambitious to unlock for his own use only a single box of the huge vault. He was familiar with the wonderful story of Mackay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien, Kings of the Comstock Lode, and owners of the Big Bonanza, who paid their 600 miners five dollars per day in gold, for eight hours' labor a third of a mile below the earth's surface. The Comstock Lode yielded over $5,000,000 per month, or a total output of silver and gold of over $250,000,000.

For six long weary months Alfonso and his companion searched for gold down the Green River and along the river bottom of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, till they reached the Needles on the A. & P. Railway.

Thence they rode west to Kern River. This stream they followed on horseback into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, all the time searching for precious metals, especially gold. The mountains were crossed over to Owen's Lake, and a river traced north. Alfonso was prospecting in new fields, but his search thus far was fruitless. His companion sickened and died, but Alfonso bravely climbed among the mountains hoping to cross the crest and reach the cabins of friendly government officials on duty in the park of the big trees in Mariposa County.

It was late in the fall, gra.s.ses and leaves had browned, Alfonso's horse had grown thin, and being too weak and lame to go forward, finally died.

His provisions had given out; his own strength and courage had failed; he needed water for his parched tongue and lips, but none was at hand; fever quickened his pulse. Sitting alone in the shadow of a giant boulder that afforded partial protection from the gathering storm, his mind reverted to his home at Harrisville where abundance could be had, to his family that thought him dead, and to Christine across the sea, whom he had vowed to win with gold. All seemed lost. Alfonso's head reeled, he fell back upon the ground, and the early snows seemed to form for him a shroud.

Good fortune guided this way a party of Yosemite Indians, who were returning from an extended hunt for deer and elk. They had also slain a few bears and a couple of mountain lions. The dead horse first arrested their attention, and then the exhausted miner was found asleep covered with snow. The Indians wrapped the sick man at once in a grizzly bear skin, fastened him to a pony, and carried him to their camp near the big trees. It was morning before Alfonso was conscious of his surroundings.

Standing by him was a shy Indian maiden with a dish of hot soup. His bed, he discovered was in a burned-out cavity of one of the big trees. Near by were several tepees, the tops of which emitted smoke. Straight, black-haired Indians in bright blankets moved slowly from tent to tent.

Alfonso scarcely conscious had strange dreams. Sometimes he thought he was in the Hodoo Region, or Goblin Land, the abode of evil spirits, where he saw every kind of fantastic beast, bird, and reptile, and no end of spectral shapes in the winding pa.s.sages of a weird labyrinth on a far-off island. Then his dreams were of rare beauty. Green foliage was changed to pure white, the trees became laden with sparkling crystals, roadways and streams were laid in s.h.i.+ning silver, and geyser-craters enlarged in strange forms resembled huge white thrones in gorgeous judgment halls.

Such fleeting beauty suggested to Alfonso's feverish brain the supernatural, the abode perhaps of spirit beings. For days the medicine man and Mariposa, daughter of the Indian chief, watched and cared for Alfonso, whose life hovered over the grave.

Mariposa, Spanish for b.u.t.terfly, was a fit name for the pretty Indian maiden. She paid great deference not only to her tall father, Red Cloud, but to the pale faces whenever in their presence. For four years Mariposa, unusually bright, attended the Indian school at Carlisle, Pa.; when she returned to her wild home in the forest she was able to speak and read the language of the pale face, and beside she loved history and poetry.

One day, Alfonso's health having slowly improved, Mariposa put in his hands a small pine cone, the size of a hen's egg, and said, ”Three years go by from the budding to the ripening of the seed of the sequoias, or big trees.”

Alfonso did not know, till Mariposa told him that the big trees were called sequoia in honor of a Cherokee chief, Sequoyah, who invented letters for his people. She also told Alfonso that there were at least ten groves of big trees on the northern slope of the Sierra Nevada range; that some of the trees were thirty feet in diameter, and 325 feet in height; that sixteen Yosemite braves on their ponies had taken refuge from a terrible storm in the hollow of a single sequoia. Alfonso prized highly a cane, fas.h.i.+oned by the Indian maiden from a fallen Big Tree. The wood had a pale red tint, and was beautifully marked and polished.

Part of the Indian hunting party went forward with the game, while Mariposa, Red Cloud, and three Yosemite braves with their ponies, waited for the handsome pale face to recover partially. Then they rode with Alfonso among the Big Trees, past Wawona, toiling up long valleys, stopping now and then to cook simple food. The Indians followed a familiar trail up dark gulches, along steep grades, through heavy timber, skirting edges of cliffs and precipitous mountains, the ruggedness constantly increasing, till suddenly Mariposa conducted Alfonso to a high point where his soul was filled with enthusiasm. Mariposa, pointing to the gorge or canyon of extraordinary depth, which was floored with forest trees and adorned with waterfalls, said, ”Here in the Yosemite (grizzly) Valley is the home of my people. Here we wish to take you until you are well. Will you go?”

Alfonso, still weak and pale, but trusting the Indian girl, replied ”Yes.” The young artist-miner had never seen such stupendous masonry; the granite walls that surrounded the valley were a succession of peaks and domes, from three thousand to four thousand feet high, all eloquent in thought and design. Alfonso began sketching, but Mariposa motioned him to put his paper aside, and the six Indian ponies with their burdens carefully picked their way into the paradise below.

Red Cloud, Mariposa, Alfonso, and the braves were received with expressions of joy unusual for the stolid red men, and Alfonso was given a tent to himself near the chief's big tepee, close by a broad clear stream, and in the shadow of large old oaks. Here for several days Alfonso tarried, grew stronger, and often walked with pretty Mariposa.

She taught him a novel method of trapping trout which thronged the river.

She had him sketch the reflection in Mirror Lake of cathedral spires and domes, of overhanging granite rocks, and tall peaks of wildest grandeur.

He also sketched several waterfalls fed by melting snow. Mariposa's favorite falls at the entrance to the valley made a single leap of hundreds of feet, and when the white spray was caught by the breezes and the sun, the lace-like mist, sparkling like diamonds, swayed gracefully in the winds like a royal bridal veil. ”The highest of a series of cascades,” Mariposa said, ”was called 'The Yosemite Falls.'”

Here eagles soar above the Cap of Liberty and other granite peaks.

Robins, larks, and humming birds swarm in the warm valley, and abundance of gra.s.s grows in the meadows for the Indian ponies.

As Alfonso's strength increased, he walked more frequently with Mariposa along the banks of the river, by the thickets of young spruce, cedar, and manzanita with its oddly contorted red stems. At times, each vied with the other in bringing back echoes from the lofty granite walls of the valley.