Part 17 (2/2)

Through all the morning of its career it fights its way, blazing an azure trail through the desert. There is no green upon its banks, hardly does a bird sing as it struggles on. But it bears right on, and so austere is its face that the desert is impotent to soil it. Then it meets a rocky wall and breaks through it, roaring on its way. Then it takes the Willamette to its own ample breast, and it bears it on until it meets the inevitable, and then undaunted goes down to its grave.

”It fights its way, it bears its burdens, it remains pure and brave to the last. That is all the best man that ever lived could do.”

As Ashley concluded Strong said: ”Why, Ashley! that is good. Why do you not give up mining and devote yourself to writing?”

Ashley laughed low, and said: ”Because I have had what repentant sinners are said to have had, my experience. Let me tell you about it.

”It was in Belmont in Eastern Nevada, during that winter when the small pox was bad. It took an epidemic form in Belmont, and a good many died.

”Among the victims was Harlow Reed. Harlow was a young and handsome fellow, a generous, happy-hearted fellow, too, and when he was stricken down, a 'soiled dove,' hearing of his illness, went and watched over him until he died.

”The morning after his death, Billy S. came to me, and handing me a slip of paper on which was Reed's name, age, etc., asked me to prepare a notice for publication. I fixed it as nearly as I could, as I had seen such things in newspapers. It read:

DIED--In Belmont, Dec. 17, Harlow Reed, a native of New Jersey aged twenty-three years.

”Billie glanced at the paper and then said: 'Harlow was a good fellow and a good friend of ours, can you not add something to this notice?'

”In response I sat down and wrote a brief eulogy of the boy, and closed the article in these words:

And for her, the poor woman, who braving the dangers of the pestilence, went and sat at the feet of the man she loved, until he died; for her, though before her garments were soiled, we know that this morning, in the Recording Angel's book it is written ”her robes are white as snow.”

”Billie took the paper to the publisher, and as he went away, I had a secret thought that, all things being considered, the notice was not bad.

”Next morning I went into a restaurant for breakfast and took a seat at a small table on one side of the narrow room. Directly opposite me were two short-card sharps. One was eating his breakfast, while the other, leaning back to catch the light, was reading the morning paper. Suddenly he stopped, and peering over his paper, though with chair still tilted back, said to his companion: 'Did you see this notice about that woman who took care of Harlow Reed while he was sick?'

”'No,' was the reply. 'What is it?' asked the companion.

”'It's away up,' said the first speaker. 'But what is it?' asked the other.

”The first speaker then threw down the paper, leaned forward, and, seizing his knife and fork, said shortly:

”'Oh, it's no great shakes after all. It says the woman while taking care of Harlow got her clothes dirty, but after he died she changed her clothes and she's all right now.'

”Since then I have never thought that I had better undertake a literary career so long as I could get four honest dollars a day for swinging a hammer in a mine; but I have always been about half sorry that I did not kill that fellow, notwithstanding the lesson that he taught me.”

There was a hearty laugh at Ashley's expense, and then Strong roused himself and said:

”The Columbia is very grand, but you must follow it up to its chief tributary if you would find perfect glory--follow it into the very desert. You have heard of the lava beds of Idaho. They were once a river of molten fire from 300 feet to 900 feet in depth, which burned its way through the desert for hundreds of miles. To the east of the source of this lava flow, the Snake River bursts out of the hills, becoming almost at once a sovereign river, and flowing at first south-westerly, and then bending westerly, cuts its way through this lava bed, and, continuing its way with many bends, finally, far to the north merges with the Columbia. On this river are several falls. First, the American Falls, are very beautiful. Sixty miles below are the Twin Falls, where the river, divided into two nearly equal parts, falls one hundred and eighty feet. They are magnificent. Three miles below are the Shoshone Falls, and a few miles lower down the Salmon Falls. It was of the Shoshone Falls that I began to speak.

”They are real rivals of Niagara. Never anywhere else was there such a scene; never anywhere else was so beautiful a picture hung in so rude a frame; never anywhere else on a background so forbidding and weird were so many glories cl.u.s.tered.

”Around and beyond there is nothing but the desert, sere, silent, lifeless, as though Desolation had builded there everlasting thrones to Sorrow and Despair.

”Away back in remote ages, over the withered breast of the desert, a river of fire one hundred miles wide and four hundred miles long, was turned. As the fiery ma.s.s cooled, its red waves became transfixed and turned black, giving to the double desert an indescribably blasted and forbidding face.

”But while this river of fire was in flow, a river of water was fighting its way across it, or has since made the war and forged out for itself a channel through the ma.s.s. This channel looks like the grave of a volcano that has been robbed of its dead.

”But right between its crumbling and repellant walls a transfiguration appears. And such a picture! A river as lordly as the Hudson or the Ohio, springing from the distant snow-crested Tetons, with waters transparent as gla.s.s, but green as emerald, with majestic flow and ever-increasing volume, sweeps on until it reaches this point where the august display begins.

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