The whole canyon was so entirely blocked, as if by some rude
guerilla fortification, that we could only mount by lengths of
wooden ladder, fixed in the hillside. These led us round the
farther corner of the dump; and when they were at an end, we still
persevered over loose rubble and wading deep in poison oak, till we
struck a triangular platform, filling up the whole glen, and shut
in on either hand by bold projections of the mountain. Only in
front the place was open like the proscenium of a theatre, and we
looked forth into a great realm of air, and down upon treetops and
hilltops, and far and near on wild and varied country. The place
still stood as on the day it was deserted: a line of iron rails
with a bifurcation; a truck in working order; a world of lumber,
old wood, old iron; a blacksmith's forge on one side, half buried
in the leaves of dwarf madronas; and on the other, an old brown
wooden house.
Fanny and I dashed at the house. It consisted of three rooms, and
was so plastered against the hill, that one room was right atop of
another, that the upper floor was more than twice as large as the
lower, and that all three apartments must be entered from a
different side and level. Not a window-sash remained.
The door of the lower room was smashed, and one panel hung in
splinters. We entered that, and found a fair amount of rubbish:
sand and gravel that had been sifted in there by the mountain
winds; straw, sticks, and stones; a table, a barrel; a plate-rack
on the wall; two home-made bootjacks, signs of miners and their
boots; and a pair of papers pinned on the boarding, headed
respectively "Funnel No.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52