The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Everlasting Whisper, by Jackson Gregory

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Everlasting Whisper

Author: Jackson Gregory

Release Date: November 22, 2003 [EBook #10213]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVERLASTING WHISPER ***

Produced by Dave Morgan and PG Distributed Proofreaders

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
coexisted, touching fingers across the seventy miles that lie between
the icy top of the Sierra and the burning lowlands.

Here, in a region lifted a mile into the rare atmosphere, was a ridge
all naked boulder and spire along its crest, its sides studded with pine
and incense cedar. The afternoon sunlight streaked the big bronze tree
trunks, making bright gay spots and patches of light, casting cool black
shadows across the open spaces where the brown dead needles lay in thick
carpets. It was early June, and thus far only had the springtime
advanced in its vernal progress upward through the timbered solitudes.
Some few small patches of snow still lingered on in spots sheltered from
the sun, but now they were ebbing away in thin trickles. Down in a
hollow at the base of the sunny slope was a round alpine lake no bigger
than a pond in a city park. It was of the same deep, perfect