Red Rock

“ Men appeared to spring from the ground as in the days of Cadmus, ready for war. Red Rock and Birdwood became recruiting-stations and depots of supply. From the big estates men came; from the small homesteads amid their orchards, and from the cabins back among the pines—all eager for war and with a new light in their eyes. Everyone was in the movement. Major Legaie was a colonel and Mr. Gray was a captain; Dr. Cary was surgeon, and even old Mr. ”

“ Within a week or two following Major Welch’s trip to the county seat, and Still’s offer to sell him the Stamper place and a part of Red Rock, Mrs. Welch arrived. Mrs. Welch, in her impatience, could not wait for the day she had set and arrived before she was expected. The telegram she had sent had miscarried, and when she reached the station there was no one present to meet her.
A country station is a sad place at best to one who has just left the bustle and life of a city ”

“ He jerked his thumb in the direction of Red Rock.
It all flashed on the girl in a moment.
“Oh! They have arrested Mr. Rupert Gray, and they want Mr. Jacquelin Gray and Captain Allen? Who has arrested him?”
“The d—tectives. But them’s the ones had it done—Major Leech and Mist’ Still.” He winked elaborately, in a way that caused Ruth to stiffen with indignation.
“What was it for?” she asked, coldly.
“For murder—killin’ them men three or four years back. They’ve got the dead wood on ’em now—since the young one told all about it.” ”

“ Middleton and Thurston quickly felt the beneficial effect of their civility to the old officers, in the increasing cordiality shown them by their landlady. Mrs. Dockett gave them a full account of both visitors, their pedigrees and position, not omitting a glowing picture of the beauty and charms of the daughter of Dr. Cary, and a hint that she was bound to marry either Jacquelin Gray, the owner of Red Rock, or her cousin, Captain Stevenson Allen, who, Mrs. Dockett declared, was the finest young man in the world, and had applied to her for table-board that very day. ”

“ A stage ride from this place to the park ‘is a day of scenery as captivating and sublime as the Yellowstone Park itself.’
“The road threads the foothills of the Rocky mountains, skirting beautiful Centennial valley, the Red Rock Lakes, and after passing through Alaska basin, crosses the divide to Henry Lake424 in Idaho, whence it recrosses the range into Montana via Targhe Pass near the western entrance to the park. Red Rock Lakes are one of the sources of the Missouri river, and in Henry Lake originates one of the branches of the Snake. ”

“ Their forms are more rugged than those of any other hill-group in Britain (Fig. 331) . Every declivity among them is an irregular pile of crags, every crest is notched like a saw, every peak is sharpened into a pinnacle. Instead of being buried under vast sheets of their own debris, these hills show everywhere their naked rock, which seems to brave the elements as few other rocks can do. Unlike the pale Red Hills, they are dark, almost black in tone, though when canopied with cloud they assume a hue of deepest violet. ”

“ I ripped fragment of rock from the wall. The piece must have weighed two or three pounds. With my strength I slammed it full into Red-Eye's face. It nearly finished him. He staggered backward, dropping his stick, and almost fell off the cliff.
He was a ferocious sight. His face was covered with blood, and he was snarling and gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He wiped the blood from his eyes, caught sight of me, and roared with fury. His stick was gone, so he began ripping out chunks of crumbling rock and throwing them in at me. ”

“ Before leaving Rockwood the train-men are observed to examine critically the wheels, trucks and couplings of our cars, and we know that something unusual ahead suggests the precaution.
Moving slowly through a deeply shaded cutting, a sharp outward curve is rounded, and what a vision greets our astonished eyes! The most magnificent of all the cañons of the Rockies! The mountain presents a red granite front, perpendicular for nearly a thousand feet, and midway between top and bottom has been chiseled from the solid rock a long balcony or shelf, just wide enough for the track. ”

“ Just then Redjacket's log strikes a sunken rock, and is thrust backward. A swift movement—the log comes down with a splash into the foam; the man bends over, straightens his body, and stands upright as before, then strikes an attitude, and sails on past the obstacle. ”

“ There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock) ,
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ”

“ Downstream there are rapids which, though they look very innocent, are not to be trifled with, as I found later. Opposite, on the German bank, the mountains are as bare and highly coloured as those we had passed through. Indeed, “Red-hot Valley,” as we called it, is but one of scores in this region, where, strangely enough, the peaks near the river are all devoid of vegetation. The schistose rock of which they are principally composed seems to be suffering from dry-rot, for it crumbles at the slightest touch, and in climbing a whole avalanche is eternally clattering down from underfoot. ”

“ Then immediate evidence of tragedy confronted them. The floor of the cave was of very fine shingle intermixed with sand. The sides were much broken and the strata of the rock had wrinkled and bent in upon itself. The lamp stood on a ledge and flung a radius of light over the floor beneath. Here had been collected the food and drink supplied to Redmayne on the previous day, and it was clear that he had eaten and drunk heartily. But the arresting fact appeared on the beaten and broken surface of the ground. ”

“ No stranger situation could be imagined than the finding of a beautiful girl chained to a rock in the midst of the great Red Desert. This, however, was a matter for future consideration. The girl needed immediate attention, and Ross's first thought was to release her.
When he examined her shackles Ross realized that release was not going to be easy. The four rings to which the chains were fastened were secured to the canon wall by means of heavy iron staples driven deep into fissures in the rock. A test of strength showed that nothing short of a charge of dynamite would ever loosen them. ”

“ The foxy red colour of exposed faces of serpentine hills, and the generally shattered nature of the rock, have already been referred to. When one approaches the masses closely, the red colour often becomes less marked, because the fresh debris flanking the hills is of a darker aspect. The slopes of serpentine hills are usually steep, and this combined with the rotten nature of the rock renders their climbing not always quite free from danger. ”

“ The widely-spread Conglomerate base of the Old Red Sandstone, which presents, over an area of so many thousand square miles, such an identity of character, that specimens taken from the neighborhood of Lerwick, in Shetland, can scarce be distinguished from specimens detached from the hills which rise over the great Caledonian Valley, contains in various places, as under the Northern Sutor, for instance, and along the shores of Navity, fragments of rock which have not been detected in situ in the districts in which they occur as agglomerated pebbles. ”

“ We even know the nature of the rock upon which they rested. As shown by fragments still locked up among the interstices of their petrified roots, it was an Old Red flagstone similar to that of Caithness in the neighborhood of Wick and Thurso, and containing the same fossil remains. In the water-rolled pebbles of the Conglomerate of Helmsdale and Port Gower,—pebbles encrusted by Oolitic corals, and enclosed in a calcareous paste, containing Oolitic belemnites and astreæ,—I have found the well marked fishes and fucoids of the Old Red Sandstone. ”

“ Highly contorted and banded gneiss and schist are well exposed elsewhere, particularly in the Idaho Springs-Central City-Black Hawk region.
Along the flanks of the Front Range, the eroded edges of the sedimentary rocks which once covered the range are exposed. These rocks are usually tilted sharply against the mountains, as at Garden of the Gods, Denver’s Red Rocks Park, and the Flatirons near Boulder. The Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists has erected a plaque explaining the geology of the Red Rocks area; look for it about half a mile northeast of the Red Rocks Amphitheater. ”

“ The Rock itself is a hard red freestone, in beds dipping to the south-east, about one in five; these beds are various in their thickness, some being much greater than others; but, generally, well connected together. Such parts as are not immediately exposed to the violent wash of the waves, are coated with a hard crust, and covered with limpets ”

“ This formation is usually prominent as the eastern wall of the uplifted Red Rocks series. In some localities it forms a ridge of pink or white sandstone distinctly separated from the older sediments to the west. Very few fossils are found. ”

“ Be it remarked, too, that the red clay here,—evidently derived from the abrasion of the red rocks beneath,—is in dye and composition almost identical with the substance on which, as an unconsolidated sandstone, the bleaching influences, whatever their character, had operated in the Palæozoic period, so many long ages before;—it is a repetition of the ancient experiment in the Old Red, that we now see going on in the boulder-clay. ”

“ As we go on, the sharp ridge of Red Mountain comes into view, guarded on the east by a monster hill, which none of our ingenious explorers, so generous in giving names, have condescended to dignify with a title. Its broad base washed by the rushing torrent, its sides clothed in a mantle of living green away up to the sharp line which marks the limit of the timber growth, and yet on and up the eye glances over the granite, with its azure background, until the vast pile is diademed with a fleecy cloud. ”

“ A man of this description is not to be held by lightly. I grappled him to my heart.
One day when we were taking a constitutional walk together, I casually mentioned the “Red Hills.” He had never heard of them, inquired, and I told him what little I knew on the matter. The Red Hills are mounds of burnt clay of a brick-red colour, found at intervals along the fringe of the marshes on the east coast. ”

“ All the top of the red granite plateau—it was evidently the stone heart of an ancient mountain—was hidden from him. He could see nothing of the Red Rover or any of her crew. He could see no living thing.
The flat plain of red dust lay about him, curving below a near horizon. Loose dust sucked at his feet, rose about him in a suffocating saffron cloud. The sun, a little crimson globe in a blue-black sky, shone blisteringly. The sky was soberly dark, cold and hostile. In alarmed haste, he struggled toward the grim line of high, red cliffs. ”

“ But Shefford thrilled with both fear and exultation. That was the country which had been described to him. Far across the red valley, far beyond the ragged line of black mesa and yellow range, lay the wild canyon with its haunting secret.
Red Lake must be his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown to seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know and be always haunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his singular journey ”

“ It did not occur to any man that this poor, despised red man was the original discoverer, and sole occupant for many centuries, of every mountain seamed with quartz and every stream whose yellow sand glittered in the noonday sun. ”

“ Still nearer to the present day one can imagine that the dolorous lover has carved his lady’s name upon the wall of the cave by means of a flint implement which his uneasy foot had unearthed from among the ancient dust of the deserted dwelling-place. Could the life and times of the occupants of the Red Cliff be written, from the days of the first inhabitant to the period of to-day, a history of Europe would be provided which could never be excelled for picturesqueness nor for vivid detail. ”

“ Red's hat flew in no time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like more maniacs. Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would roll up and hide everything. No one was more pleased at the spectacle than the blacksmith. He was capering in the middle of the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him down! Hold him DOWN! Why do you let him jump up like that? ”

“ Having reached Centre Harbor at two in the afternoon, there was still time to ascend Red Hill before sunset. This eminence would be called a mountain anywhere else. Its altitude is inconsiderable, but its situation at the head of the lake, on its very borders, is highly favorable to a commanding prospect of the surrounding lake region. There are two summits, the northern and highest being only a little more than two thousand feet. ”

“ A body, tall, angular, and ill-shaped, scarred with cicatrised wounds, and bent with age; a face seamed with the traces of evil passion; eyes deep sunken in their sockets, and sparkling like coals of fire—an aspect more fiend-like than human! All this agrees with the descriptions I have had of the Red-Hand chief. Assuredly it is he. Our enemies, then, are the Arapahoes—their leader the dreaded Red-Hand.
“Heaven have mercy upon us! These men will have none!” Such was the ejaculation that escaped my lips, on recognising, or believing that I recognised, the foe that was before us. ”