THE EVERLASTING WHISPER

_A Tale of the California Wilderness_.

By JACKSON GREGORY




To Maxwell E. Perkins

With The Author'S Grateful Recognition Of His Countless Sympathetic
Criticisms And Suggestions




_Chapter I_


It was springtime in the California Sierra. Never were skies bluer,
never did the golden sun-flood steep the endless forest lands in richer
life-giving glory. Ridge after ridge the mountains swept on and fell
away upon one side until in the vague distances they sank to the
monotonous level of the Sacramento Valley; down there it was already
summer, and fields were hot and brown. Ridge after ridge the mountains
stretched on the other side, rising steadily, growing ever more august
and mighty and rocky; on their crests across the blue gorges the snow
was dazzling white and winter held stubbornly on at altitudes of seven
thousand feet. Thus winter, springtime, and ripe, fruit-dropping summer