Helen Hunt Jackson

“ If it had been my birthday of my eightieth year in Ahwahne, I could not have clung to the valley more fondly. As I looked up to the dark line of firs on either side of the Great Fall, I pictured to myself the form of that six-year-old boy of the Ahwahnechee, who, when the white men entered the valley, was seen climbing, naked, like a wild chamois, on the glistening granite face of the rock-wall, midway between heaven and earth, to escape the enemy. ”

“ Imagine a red cone, from four to ten inches in height, and one to two in diameter, set firmly in the ground. It is not simply red, it is blood-red; deep and bright as drops from living veins. It is soft, flesh-like, and in the beginning shows simply a surface of small, close, lapping, sheath-like points, as a pine-cone does. ”

“ As far off as one can see down the dim vistas of these pine-forests will gleam out the vivid scarlet of one of these superb uncanny flowers. When its time comes to die, it turns black, so that in its death, also, it looks like a fleshly thing linked to mysteries.
At last Murphy shouted triumphantly from ahead: "Here's the trail. Fetched it this time; now keep up, sharp;" and he rode off down a steep and rocky hillside, at a rate which dismayed me. The trail was faint, but distinct: at times on broad opens, it spread out suddenly into thousands of narrow dusty furrows ”

“ Now I was to find out—I who had thought the trail up Indian Canyon well nigh impassable—what it is to ride where there is no trail. Over steep slopes, thick with bowlders and bushes, and no trace of a path—along rocky ledges, where loose stones rolled under the horses' feet at every step,—three times Murphy tried too near the river to get up to the Mono trail. ”

“ Then the knight with the hatchet went back, and we began to pick our way up Indian Canyon. I could see no trail. All I knew was that Murphy was zigzagging along before me, on the steep side of the Canyon, through thickets of interlaced growths of all sorts, and over numberless little streams which were foaming across our track, and that I was following him.
"Don't try to guide the horse," he called back to me every few minutes. "He'll follow me, or pick out a better way for himself." ”

“ We might strike off on the ridges along the river, in just the line to hit it. We might wander about for hours, and not find it. Then, again, when we had found it, and by it had reached the river, what if even there the river proved unfordable? This was Murphy's great point of perplexity, I could see.
"We should have hard work to get back to the valley again to-night," he said.
I shuddered at the thought of riding down that wall after dark. But I kept silence. I did not wish to seem to bias his decision. At last he burst out with—
"I'm blamed if I know what to do. ”

“ Its innumerable and impenetrable black vistas had an indescribable fascination. And here and there, even in the darkest distances, gleamed out the vivid warmthless glow of the mysterious snow-plants; sometimes just in the edge of the snow-drifts ”

“ Murphy smiled pityingly at me, and went on talking with the men. Then he walked away with them for a few moments. When he came back, I read in his eyes that we were to go on.
"There's the old Injun trail," he said, "there ain't any trouble about the trail. The thing that stumps me, is the river; there don't none of these men think you can get over." ”

“ It was fast growing dark; very dark very fast. It was already quite impossible for me to see the blazes on the trees; and Murphy had often to ride close up to a tree to make sure he was right. The blazes were old, and in many places almost the color of the rest of the tree. I could see that Murphy was anxious. He kept his horse at the fastest gait he thought I could follow, and said to me every now and then, "Ye must keep up 's well 's ye can. These woods is pretty dark." ”