was the morning of our eighth day in Ahwahne; and the next day we must go.
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. A cruel man of his tribe lured him down and gave him captive to the white men, who christened him Reuben, put trowsers on him, and sent him to school. But just when they thought they had him tamed, he stole two horses and ran away, "to illustrate the folly of attempting to civilize the race," says the biographer of the poor Ahwahnechee; "to illustrate the spell of Ahwahne," say I. Swift on the stolen horses I know he rode back to Ahwahne, and finding it in the hands of white men, fled on to some still remoter walled valley, where he lives in a wigwam to-day.
"John Murphy, guide," as with quaint dignity he writes his name, stood near me, also looking up at the Fall.
"When you come back next year, 's ye say you're comin', but then folks never does come back when they sav they will," said Murphy, "I'll hev a trail built right to the base o' thet upper fall."
"Why, Mr. Murphy, where will you put it?" I said, looking along the sheer gray wall three thousand feet high.
"There's plenty of places. I'll make it as broad 'n' easy a trail 's there is in this valley," said Murphy quietly; "'tain't half so steep as 'tis up Indian Canyon, where they've just finished a new trail this week; at least so they say; I hain't seen it."
"Up Indian Canyon," I exclaimed, for I knew where that lay; it was the next one to the east of the Great Fall, and in one of the steepest parts of the valley. "Then why can I not go out of the valley that way, and strike across to Gentry's?"
Murphy hesitated.
"Well, ye might; an' 'twould be jest what you'd like; you could cross the Yo Semite Creek just above the Fall, an' go' up on to Eagle Pint; an' the view from there is finer than 'tis from Sentinel Dome where I took ye yesterday. But ye see I mistrust whether the river ain't too high to ford."
What more could be needed to make one resolve to go? Boom-boom-boom, sounded the deep violoncello undertones of the Fall, thundering down from the sky, three thousand feet up. Ford that? Every drop of blood in one's veins took a bound at the thought.
All the Scotchman in Murphy demurred about the undertaking; but the woodsman and the sympathizing guide conquered.
"I'd like to hev ye see it first rate," he said, "but I want ye to understand before we set out, that I shan't cross if I think there's any resk."
This last with a determination of tone which was worthy of Cromwell.
In an hour all was ready, and, in spite of shaking heads and warning voices, we set out. In that short time the usual amount of conflicting testimony had been gathered as to the trail and the condition of the river. "The trail was finished;" "the trail was only half done;" "the river was much too high to be forded;" "a man had come across yesterday, without trouble."
"I expect ye'd kind o' hate to give up, an' come down into the valley agin?" said Murphy, inquiringly, as we rode out into the meadows.
"Mr. Murphy," I replied, "I shall not give up, and come down into the valley again. There must be some other way of getting across, higher up. Is there not?"
If Mr. Murphy perceived the truly feminine manner in which I defined my position, the delicious contrast between my first sentence and my last, he did not betray any consciousness of it, but answered with undisturbed gravity:
"Why, yes; there's the old Mono Trail, a good piece farther up the river. But I drama's you could ride so far's that. However, we don't know yet but what we can get over to the first ford." And Murphy relapsed into his customary thoughtful silence.
The meadow was dewy and sweet; through the lush grass and brakes we rode past red lilies, white azalias, columbines, and wild roses: after half an hour of this, we struck the new, trail and began climbing the wall.