CHAPTER I.


A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN.


They lived on the verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far above
the surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearest
valley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. The
rush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base were
lost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines that
half way climbed its flanks spent their fury below the summit; for, at
variance with most meteorological speculation, an eternal calm seemed
to invest this serene altitude. The few Alpine flowers seldom
thrilled their petals to a passing breeze; rain and snow fell alike
perpendicularly, heavily, and monotonously over the granite bowlders
scattered along its brown expanse. Although by actual measurement an
inconsiderable elevation of the Sierran range, and a mere shoulder of
the nearest white-faced peak that glimmered in the west, it seemed
to lie so near the quiet, passionless stars, that at night it caught
something of their calm remoteness.

The articulate utterance of such a locality should have been a whisper;
a laugh or exclamation was discordant; and the ordinary tones of the
human voice on the night of the 15th of May, 1868, had a grotesque
incongruity.

In the thick darkness that clothed the mountain that night, the human
figure would have been lost, or confounded with the outlines of outlying
bowlders, which at such times took upon themselves the vague semblance