Here, mountain and house
and the old tools of industry were all alike rusty and downfalling.
The hill was here wedged up, and there poured forth its bowels in a
spout of broken mineral; man with his picks and powder, and nature
with her own great blasting tools of sun and rain, labouring
together at the ruin of that proud mountain. The view up the
canyon was a glimpse of devastation; dry red minerals sliding
together, here and there a crag, here and there dwarf thicket
clinging in the general glissade, and over all a broken outline
trenching on the blue of heaven. Downwards indeed, from our rock
eyrie, we behold the greener side of nature; and the bearing of the
pines and the sweet smell of bays and nutmegs commanded themselves
gratefully to our senses. One way and another, now the die was
cast. Silverado be it!
After we had got back to the Toll House, the Jews were not long of
striking forward. But I observed that one of the Hanson lads came
down, before their departure, and returned with a ship's kettle.
Happy Hansons! Nor was it until after Kelmar was gone, if I
remember rightly, that Rufe put in an appearance to arrange the
details of our installation.
The latter part of the day, Fanny and I sat in the verandah of the
Toll House, utterly stunned by the uproar of the wind among the
trees on the other side of the valley.
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