Longhorn

“ Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their own way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over the hundred hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and Dunchuach, and the large woods of home toss before them like corn before the hook. Up come the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the tall trees, and in the morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut in the forest. ”

“ The ride at first was one long series of glories and surprises, of peak and glade, of lake and stream, and of mountain upon mountain, culminating in the shivered pinnacles of Long's Peak. And as the sun slowly sank, the pines stood out darkling against the golden sky, the grey peaks took upon their crests a glory of crimson and purple, a luminous mist of changing colours filled every glen, gorge, and canyon, while the echoes softly repeated that peculiar sough or murmur which accompanies the departing day. ”

“ Deep, vast canyons, all trending westwards, lie in purple gloom. Pine-clad ranges, rising into the blasted top of Storm Peak, all run westwards too, and all the beauty and glory are but the frame out of which rises—heaven-piercing, pure in its pearly luster, as glorious a mountain as the sun tinges red in either hemisphere—the splintered, pinnacled, lonely, ghastly, imposing, double-peaked summit of Long's Peak, the Mont Blanc of Northern Colorado. ”

“ The sun lit up in warm colors the great mountain peaks encircling the valley. The more distant peaks were invisible, but we had a remarkable view of the towering battlements to the north, in themselves so lofty and seemingly so near to us. We had a short service as usual, and as we anticipated a toilsome journey in front of us, we resolved on a Sabbath day's travel in order to get hardened to our work. We rode about twelve miles up the valley between mountains of the most imposing grandeur. One peak crowned with perpetual snow is of striking beauty. Another has a cubical summit. ”

“ Down this trail at the last fierce end of the storm came the great wild sheep, the bighorn, the heaviest-headed, lightest-footed, winter-proof sheep of the mountains that God shepherds on the high battlements of the hills. Down they came when there was no meadow, nor thicket, nor any smallest twig of heather left uncovered on the highlands, and took the lake of soggy snow by Jerry's cabin in the dark. They had come far under the weight of the great curved horns through the clogging drifts. ”

“ We jogged on, up hill and down, through timbered land and little meadows, by the sides of deep gorges and under huge cliffs, now in the sunlight and again through such dense forests of heavy firs that night seemed to have set in, until we reached the summit of the Pass, and looked beyond upon the massive and frowning Blue River range, riven in mighty fissures, its sharp peaks kissing the azure sky, its great gorges filled with the eternal snows, now rosy under the rays of the setting sun, and over all brooding a solemn stillness that bade the heart bow in humility and reverential awe. ”

“ Here comes the hod-horn, plod-horn, sod-horn, Nevermore-to-roam-horn, loam-horn, home-horn. (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.) To be read or sung, well-nigh in a whisper. Far away the Rachel-Jane Not defeated by the horns Sings amid a hedge of thorns:— "Love and life, Eternal youth— Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, Dew and glory, Love and truth, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet." Louder and louder, faster and faster. ”

“ Looking down from the summit, the forest is a closely woven vesture, which has fallen over the body of the range, clinging closely to its form, sinking into the deep cañons, covering the hill-tops with even velvety folds, and only lost here and there where a bold mass of rock gives it no foothold, or where around the margin of the mountain lakes bits of alpine meadow lie open to the sun. ”

“ After tracing the Sierra streams from their fountains to the plains, marking where they bloom white in falls, glide in crystal plumes, surge gray and foam-filled in boulder-choked gorges, and slip through the woods in long, tranquil reaches—after thus learning their language and forms in detail, we may at length hear them chanting all together in one grand anthem, and comprehend them all in clear inner vision, covering the range like lace. But even this spectacle is far less sublime and not a whit more substantial than what we may behold of these storm-streams of air in the mountain woods. ”

“ When once in, I am royally entertained; for though coy and apparently hard to woo, Nature is a most delightful companion when once you are acquainted.
So sang Longfellow. Bishop Warren said that every peak tempted him as with a beckoning finger, daring him to a climb.
To those who have never been nearer the unlocked fastnesses of our eternal American hills than by the too common means above mentioned, the far-away cliffs of marble or white granite, with their areas of unmeltable snows and ices, look temptingly down on us in August, together with the smaller and less inspiring crags. ”

“ The bighorn is also an inhabitant of these mountains, and the natives have several robes made of their skins. The mountains near this place are high, steep, and strewed with rocks, which are principally black. Several species of fir, white pine, and white cedar, forms their covering, while near the river we see the cottonwood, sweet-willow, a species of maple, the broad-leafed ash, the purple haw, a small species of cherry, the purple currant, gooseberry, red-willow, the vining and whiteberry honeysuckle, the huckleberry, sacacommis, two kinds of mountain holly, and the common ash. ”

“ Making your way along any of the wide gray valleys that stretch from north to south, seldom will your eye be interrupted by a single mark of cultivation. The smooth lake-like ground sweeps on indefinitely, growing more and more dim in the glowing sunshine, while a mountain range from eight to ten thousand feet high bounds the view on either hand. No singing water, no green sod, no moist nook to rest in—mountain and valley alike naked and shadowless in the sun-glare ”

“ Hills upon hills, covered with pine and fir, stretch away from the lowlands to the distant glacier-clad mountains, and patches of green meadow gleam through the dark pine depths.
The clear blue sky changes to a faint haze in the hilly distance. The gentle air is perfumed with the odor of the forest. A Sabbath stillness broods over all. The sun has swung around to the northwest, and skims along the horizon as if loth to leave such a sweet scene.
Evening was settling down on the Norwegian saeter, or summer herd ground. Riding along the trail through the pines appeared a young man. ”

“ Then we emerged on the vast expanse of the glittering Plains, and a sudden sweep of wind made the cold so intolerable that I had to go into a house to get warm. This was the last house we saw till we reached our destination that night. I never saw the mountain range look so beautiful—uplifted in every shade of transparent blue, till the sublimity of Long's Peak, and the lofty crest of Storm Peak, bore only unsullied snow against the sky. Peaks gleamed in living light ”

“ We have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of winter and power of the summer sun, untroubled also by the storms and mists that veil the mountains; although I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often. The grass moreover is so fresh, and the brook so bright and lively, and flowers of so many hues come after one another that no one need be dull, if only left alone with them. ”

“ Northward and southward the great snowy mountains, marshaled along the axis of the Range, are seen in all their glory, crowded together in some places like trees in groves, making landscapes of wild, extravagant, bewildering magnificence, yet calm and silent as the sky. ”

“ Thorn Mountain, Tin and Eagle are the nearer waves, their outline rising and falling and showing beyond them Black Mountain and the two summits of Doublehead, and beyond them Shaw and Gemini and Sloop, great billows rising and - 35 - rolling on. Down upon the forest foam left behind in the hollows of these rides the Carter Moriah Range, a jagged, onrushing ridge, driven by the same gale. The day may be calm to all senses but the eye, yet there is the sea beneath you and beyond, tossed mountain high by the tempest. ”

“ The atmosphere is so clear that the eye can view the country for hundreds of miles, though to the untrained sight, distances are deceiving. Silhouetted against the northern sky is Long’s Peak; northward the range breaks down on to 16 the Black Hills with their Twin Mountains; eastward the country slopes symmetrically to the plains, treeless, level to where their horizon meets the curve of the sky. ”

“ First there were the plains, represented by a brown haze of heat; then, very remote, the foot-hills, the brush-hills, the pine mountains, the upper timber, the tremendous granite peaks, and finally the barrier of the main crest with its glittering snow. From the plains to that crest was over seventy miles. I should not dare say how far we could see down the length of the range; nor even how distant was the other wall of the cañon over which we rode. Certainly it was many miles; and to reach the latter point consumed three days.
It is useless to multiply instances. ”

“ From the mountains we do not discern our native hills, but from our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountain which seems to preside over them. As I look northwestward to that summit from a Concord cornfield, how little can I realize all the life that is passing between me and it, the retired up-country farmhouses, the lonely mills, wooded vales, wild rocky pastures, new clearings on stark mountain sides, and rivers murmuring through primitive woods. ”

“ On the hills grew high brush, some of it very beautiful. The buckthorn, for example, was just coming out; and the dogwood, and the mountain laurel. At first these clumps of bush were few and scattered; and the surface of the hills, carpeted with short grass, rolled gently away, or broke in stone dikes and outcrops. Then later, as we mounted, they drew together until they covered the mountainsides completely, save where oaks and madrone kept clear some space for themselves. ”

“ But at whatever season you seek the bighorn, remember that he is very easily driven away, that all his senses are exceptionally keen, and that from his vantage ground above he incessantly watches the valley beneath. ”

“ At one moment may be seen a cone-shaped mountain rising to the height of some eight hundred feet, and completely covered, to the extreme summit, with a carpet of grass; now the eye will linger on a perpendicular bluff, pictured against the sky, like a fortress of the Mound Builders, and actually frowning upon the softly flowing stream that laves its foliage-hidden base ”

“ The girdle of blasted trees below was piteous, but this was truly a strange spectacle. Indeed, the pallid forehead of the mountain seemed wearing a crown of thorns.
Getting clear of the dwarf-trees, or knee-wood, as it is called in the Alps, we ran quickly up the bare summit ledge. The transition from the gloom and desolation below into clear sunshine and free air was almost as great as from darkness to light. We lost all sense of fatigue; we felt only exultation and supreme content. ”

“ In the heart of the valley the heights are heavily wooded, and the sombre greens wall out the world to the sky-line; but farther on bald slopes and ridges stretch away above the pines and firs, and the blue arch of the firmament springs clear from snow-capped abutments of fallow dun and weathered gray.
In the upper levels of the valley the disused trail leaves the stream and begins to climb by loops and zigzags to the pass. ”

“ Standing on the top of one of these Coast Mountains, the eye ranges for many miles over hill and dale, dotted everywhere with the huge black trunks, the relics of the great conflagration. Many standing yet, some towering high into the sky, testify of their former gracefulness by the symmetrical tapering of the tall trunk, and the regular positions of the broken limbs and branches. ”

“ The unknown mountains ahead rose dizzily up like a fearsome rampart of giants, their curious regularities showing with startling clearness even without a field glass. We were over the lowest foothills now, and could see amidst the snow, ice, and bare patches of their main plateau a couple of darkish spots which we took to be Lake's camp and boring. ”

“ We ourselves are going westward now, rather than north-west, and the sun beckons us. For the mountain we are now setting out to reach has been called by the Indians “Going-to-the-Sun.” It stands over and beyond St. Mary’s Lake and climbs heavenward in gigantic steps of stone. It steps from the forest to the rocks, from the rocks to the snow, from the snow to the sky. ”

“ In high water, the stream occupies all the bottom of the gorge, surging and chafing in glorious power from wall to wall. But the sound of the grinding was low as I entered the gorge, scarcely hoping to be able to pass through its entire length. By cool efforts, along glassy, ice-worn slopes, I reached the upper end in a little over a day, but was compelled to pass the second night in the gorge, and in the moonlight I wrote you this short pencil-letter in my notebook:--
The moon is looking down into the canyon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! ”