You rode three miles on the flat, two in the leafy
and gradually ascending creek-bed of a canon, a half

hour of laboring steepness in the overarching mountain
lilac and laurel. There you came to a great rock
gateway which seemed the top of the world. At the
gateway was a Bad Place where the ponies planted
warily their little hoofs, and the visitor played "eyes
front," and besought that his mount should not
stumble.

Beyond the gateway a lush level canon into which
you plunged as into a bath; then again the laboring
trail, up and always up toward the blue California
sky, out of the lilacs, and laurels, and redwood
chaparral into the manzanita, the Spanish bayonet, the
creamy yucca, and the fine angular shale of the
upper regions. Beyond the apparent summit you
found always other summits yet to be climbed. And
all at once, like thrusting your shoulders out of a
hatchway, you looked over the top.

Then came the remarks. Some swore softly; some
uttered appreciative ejaculation; some shouted aloud;
some gasped; one man uttered three times the word
"Oh,"--once breathlessly, Oh! once in awakening
appreciation, OH! once in wild enthusiasm, OH!
Then invariably they fell silent and looked.