Silverado platform filled the whole width of the canyon. Above, as
I have said, this was a wild, red, stony gully in the mountains;
but below it was a wooded dingle. And through this, I was told,
there had gone a path between the mine and the Toll House--our
natural north-west passage to civilization. I found and followed
it, clearing my way as I went through fallen branches and dead
trees. It went straight down that steep canyon, till it brought
you out abruptly over the roofs of the hotel. There was nowhere
any break in the descent. It almost seemed as if, were you to drop
a stone down the old iron chute at our platform, it would never
rest until it hopped upon the Toll House shingles. Signs were not
wanting of the ancient greatness of Silverado. The footpath was
well marked, and had been well trodden in the old clays by thirsty
miners. And far down, buried in foliage, deep out of sight of
Silverado, I came on a last outpost of the mine--a mound of gravel,
some wreck of wooden aqueduct, and the mouth of a tunnel, like a
treasure grotto in a fairy story. A stream of water, fed by the
invisible leakage from our shaft, and dyed red with cinnabar or
iron, ran trippingly forth out of the bowels of the cave; and,
looking far under the arch, I could see something like an iron
lantern fastened on the rocky wall.
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