Theodore Winthrop

“ The mountain lines grew sharper; the country where we travelled, rougher, every stride. We came upon a wide tract covered with wild-sage bushes. These delayed and baffled us. It was a pigmy forest of trees, mature and complete, but no higher than the knee. Every dwarfed, stunted, gnarled bush, had the trunk, limbs, twigs, and gray, withered foliage, all in miniature, of some tree, hapless but sturdy, that has had a weather-beaten struggle for life on a storm-threshed crag by the shore, or on a granite side of a mountain, with short allowance of soil to eat and water to drink. ”

“ Nature never questioned what manner of men they were that sought. Murderers flying from vengeance and planning now another villain outrage, — still impartial Nature did not change her laws for them. Sunshine, air, water, life, — these boons of hers, — she gave them freely. That higher boon of death, if they were to receive, it must be from some other power, greater than the undiscriminating force of Nature. ”

“ We said nothing more; for this unconscious token, this silent cry for help, made the danger seem more closely imminent. We pressed on. No flinching in any of the horses. Where we could, we were going at speed. Where they could, the horses kept side by side, nerving each other. Companionship sustained them in that terrible ride.
And now in front the purple Sierra was growing brown, and rising up a distinct wall, cleft visibly with dell, gully, ravine, and cañon. The saw-teeth of the ridge defined themselves sharply into peak and pinnacle. Broad fields of cool snow gleamed upon the summits. ”