The season passed without further incidents of general interest. It was a busy season, as mountain seasons always are. Bob had opportunity to go nowhere; but in good truth he had no desire to do so. The surroundings immediate1 to the work were rich enough in interest. After the flurry caused by the delay in opening communication, affairs fell into their grooves2. The days passed on wings. Almost before he knew it, the dogwood leaves had turned rose, the aspens yellow, and the pines, thinning in anticipation3 of the heavy snows, were dropping their russet needles everywhere. A light snow in September reminded the workers of the altitude. By the first of November the works were closed down. The donkey engines had been roughly housed in; the machinery4 protected; all things prepared against the heavy Sierra snows. Only the three caretakers were left to inhabit a warm corner. Throughout the winter these men would shovel5 away threatening weights of snow and see to the damage done by storms. In order to keep busy they might make shakes, or perhaps set themselves to trapping fur-bearing animals. They would use _skis_ to get about.
For a month after coming down from the mountain, Bob stayed at Auntie Belle's. There were a number of things to attend to on the lower levels, such as anticipating repairs to flumes, roads and equipment, systematizing the yard arrangements, and the like. Here Bob came to know more of the countryside and its people.
He found this lower, but still mountainous, country threaded by roads; rough roads, to be sure, but well enough graded. Along these roads were the ranch6 houses and spacious7 corrals of the mountain people. Far and wide through the wooded and brushy foothills roamed the cattle, seeking the forage8 of the winter range that a summer's absence in the high mountains had saved for them. Bob used often to "tie his horse to the ground" and enter for a chat with these people. Harbouring some vague notions of Southern "crackers," he was at first considerably9 surprised. The houses were in general well built and clean, even though primitive10, and Bob had often occasion to notice excellent books and magazines. There were always plenty of children of all sizes. The young women were usually attractive and blooming. They insisted on hospitality; and Bob had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that he stood in no immediate need of nourishment11. The men repaid cultivation12. Their ideas were often faulty because of insufficient13 basis of knowledge: but, when untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive, and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical, could come into their ken14 without being mulled over and decided15 upon. In the field of their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to reception of contrary argument or idea they were always eager for new facts. Bob found himself often held in good-humoured tolerance16 as a youngster when he advanced his opinion; but listened to thirstily when he could detail actual experience or knowledge. The head of the house held patriarchal sway until the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the paternal17 roof for homes of their own. One and all loved the mountains, though incoherently, and perhaps without full consciousness of the fact. They were extremely tenacious18 of personal rights.
Bob, being an engaging and open-hearted youth, soon gained favour. Among others he came to know the two Pollock families well. Jim Pollock, with his large brood, had arrived at a certain philosophical19, though watchful20, acceptance of life; but George, younger, recently married, and eagerly ambitious, chafed21 sorely. The Pollocks had been in the country for three generations. They inhabited two places on opposite sides of a canon. These houses possessed22 the distinction of having the only two red-brick chimneys in the hills. They were low, comfortable, rambling23, vine-clad.
"We always run cattle in these hills," said George fiercely to Bob, "and got along all right. But these last three years it's been bad. Unless we can fat our cattle on the summer ranges in the high mountains, we can't do business. The grazing on these lower hills you just _got_ to save for winter. You can't raise no hay here. Since they begun to crowd us with old Wright's stock it's tur'ble. I ain't had a head of beef cattle fittin' to sell, bar a few old cows. And if I ain't got cattle to sell, where do I get money to live on? I always been out of debt; but this year I done put a mortgage on the place to get money to go on with."
"We can always eat beef, George," said his wife with a little laugh, "and miner's lettuce24. We ain't the first folks that has had hard times--and got over it."
"Mebbe not," agreed George, glancing with furrowed25 brow at a tiny garment on which Mrs. George was sewing.
Jim Pollock, smoking comfortably in his shirt sleeves before his fire, was not so worried. His youngest slept in his arms; two children played and tumbled on the floor; buxom26 Mrs. Pollock bustled27 here and there on household business; the older children sprawled28 over the table under the lamp reading; the oldest boy, with wrinkled brow, toiled29 through the instructions of a correspondence school course.
"George always takes it hard," said Jim. "I've got six kids, and he'll have one--or at most two--mebbe. It's hard times all right, and a hard year. I had to mortgage, too. Lord love you, a mortgage ain't so bad as a porous30 plaster. It'll come off. One good year for beef will fix us. We ain't lost nothing but this year's sales. Our cattle are too pore for beef, but they're all in good enough shape. We ain't lost none. Next year'll be better."
"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.
"Well, Smith, he's superintendent31 at White Oaks, you know, he's favourable32 to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant, he's sent old California John back to look over what shape the ranges are in. There ain't no doubt as to which way he'll report. Old John is a cattleman, and he's square."
One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excursion to the upper end of the valley. As a matter of course he stopped over night with the first people whose ranch he came to. It was not much of a ranch and it's two-room house was of logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable33. Bob put his horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with earth against the winter cold. He had a good time all the evening.
"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before turning in, "so if you'll just show me where the lantern is, I won't bother you in the morning."
"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the switch. It's just to the right of the door as you go in."
So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies not infrequent to the West. He entered a log stable in the remote backwoods and turned on a sixteen-candle-power electric globe! As he extended his rides among the low mountains of the First Rampart, he ran across many more places where electric light and even electric power were used in the rudest habitations.
The explanation was very simple; these men had possessed small water rights which Baker34 had needed. As part of their compensation they received from Power House Number One what current they required for their own use.
Thus reminded, Bob one Sunday visited Power House Number One. It proved to be a corrugated35 iron structure through which poured a great stream and from which went high-tension wires strung to mushroom-shaped insulators36. It was filled with the clean and shining machinery of electricity. Bob rode up the flume to the reservoir, a great lake penned in canon walls by a dam sixty feet high. The flume itself was of concrete, large enough to carry a rushing stream. He made the acquaintance of some of the men along the works. They tramped and rode back and forth37 along the right of way, occupied with their insulations, the height of their water, their watts38 and volts39 and amperes40. Surroundings were a matter of indifference41 to them. Activity was of the same sort, whether in the city or in the wilderness42. As influences--city or wilderness--it was all the same to them. They made their own influences--which in turn developed a special type of people--among the delicate and powerful mysteries of their craft. Down through the land they had laid the narrow, uniform strip of their peculiar43 activities; and on that strip they dwelt satisfied with a world of their own. Bob sat in a swinging chair talking in snatches to Hicks, between calls on the telephone. He listened to quick, sharp orders as to men and instruments, as to the management of water, the undertaking44 of repairs. These were couched in technical phrases and slang, for the most part. By means of the telephone Hicks seemed to keep in touch not only with the plants in his own district, but also with the activities in Power Houses Two, Three and Four, many miles away. Hicks had never once, in four years, been to the top of the first range. He had had no interest in doing so. Neither had he an interest in the foothill country to the west.
"I'd kind of like to get back and kill a buck45 or so," he confessed; "but I haven't got the time."
"It's a different country up where we are," urged Bob. "You wouldn't know it for the same state as this dry and brushy country. It has fine timber and green grass."
"I suppose so," said Hicks indifferently. "But I haven't got the time."
Bob rode away a trifle inclined to that peculiar form of smug pity a hotel visitor who has been in a place a week feels for yesterday's arrival. He knew the coolness of the great mountain.
At this point an opening in the second growth of yellow pines permitted him a vista46. He looked back. He had never been in this part of the country before. A little portion of Baldy, framed in a pine-clad cleft47 through the First Range, towered chill, rugged48 and marvellous in its granite49 and snow. For the first time Bob realized that even so immediately behind the scene of his summer's work were other higher, more wonderful countries. As he watched, the peak was lost in the blackness of one of those sudden storms that gather out of nothing about the great crests50. The cloud spread like magic in all directions. The faint roll of thunder came down a wind, damp and cool, sucked from the high country.
Bob rounded a bend in the road to overtake old California John, jingling52 placidly53 along on his beautiful sorrel. Though by no means friendly to any member of this branch of government service, Bob reined54 his animal.
"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.
"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly deepening of the kindly55 wrinkles about his blue eyes.
"John," asked Bob, "were you ever in those big mountains there?"
"Baldy?" said the Ranger56. "Lord love you, yes. I have to cross Baldy 'most every time I go to the back country. There's two good passes through Baldy."
"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher mountains than those?"
Old California John chuckled57.
"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and then Stone Creek58, and then Baldy. And on the other side of Baldy there's the canon of the Joncal which is three thousand foot down. And then there's the Burro Mountains, which is half again as high as Baldy, and all the Burro country to Little Jackass. That's a plateau covered with lodge-pole pine and meadows and creeks60 and little lakes. It's a big plateau, and when you're a-ridin' it, you shore seem like bein' in a wide, flat country. And then there's the Green Mountain country; and you drop off five or six thousand foot into the box canon of the north fork; and then you climb out again to Red Mountain; and after that is the Pinnacles61. The Pinnacles is the Fourth Rampart. After them is South Meadow, and the Boneyard. Then you get to the Main Crest51. And that's only if you go plumb62 due east. North and south there's all sorts of big country. Why, Baldy's only a sort of taster."
Bob's satisfaction with himself collapsed63. This land so briefly64 shadowed forth was penetrable65 only in summer: that he well knew. And all summer Bob was held to the great tasks of the forest. He hadn't the time! Wherein did he differ from Hicks? In nothing save that his right of way happened to be a trifle wider.
"Have you been to all these places?" asked Bob.
"Many times," replied California John. "From Stanislaus to the San Bernardino desert I've ridden."
"How big a country is that?"
"It's about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile wide as the crow flies--a lot bigger as a man must ride."
"All big mountains?"
"Surely."
"You must have been everywhere?"
"No," said California John, "I never been to Jack59 Main's Canon. It's too fur up, and I never could get time off to go in there."
So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel far and wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay beyond his right of way! Suddenly Bob was filled with a desire to transcend66 all these activities, to travel on and over the different rights of way to which all the rest of the world was confined until he knew them all and what lay beyond them. The impulse was but momentary67, and Bob laughed at himself as it passed.
"Something hid beyond the ranges," he quoted softly to himself.
Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins68.
"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."
"Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise; "just found that out?"
"Well, we'd better hurry."
"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore due to get wet."
"Well, let's hunt a good tree."
"No," said California John, "this is a thunder-storm, and trees is too scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open road. I've noticed that lightnin' don't hit twice in the same place mainly because the same place don't seem to be thar any more after the first time."
The first big drops of the storm delayed fully69 five minutes. It did seem foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot while the tempest gathered its power, but Bob realized the justice of his companion's remarks.
When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The rain fell as though it had been turned out of a bucket. In an instant every runnel was full. The water even flowed in a thin sheet from the hard surface of the ground. The men were soaked.
Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The lightning flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant70, and even--Bob thought--_up_. The thunder roared and reverberated71 and reechoed until the world was filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion. His horse snorted, pricking72 its ears backward and forward, dancing from side to side. The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all about them, from the substance of the murk in which they rode.
"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California John.
"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar of the tempest.
Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent73 his head to the wind. Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced Bob's horse, until they were proceeding74 single file some ten feet apart.
Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A blinding flare75 swept the ground, a hissing76 crackle was drowned in an overwhelming roar of thunder. Bob dodged77, and his horse whirled. When he had mastered both his animal and himself he spurred back. California John had reined in his mount. Not twenty feet ahead of him the bolt had struck. California John glanced quizzically over his shoulder at the sky.
"Old Man," he remarked, "you'll have to lower your sights a little, if you want to git me."
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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forage
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| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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porous
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| adj.可渗透的，多孔的 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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insulators
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| 绝缘、隔热或隔音等的物质或装置( insulator的名词复数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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watts
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| （电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 ) | |
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volts
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| n.（电压单位）伏特( volt的名词复数 ) | |
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amperes
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| n.安培( ampere的名词复数 ) | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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52
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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ranger
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| n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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creeks
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| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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penetrable
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| adj.可穿透的 | |
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transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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67
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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69
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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70
aslant
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| adv.倾斜地；adj.斜的 | |
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71
reverberated
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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72
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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73
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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74
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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75
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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76
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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77
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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