dually that he
was not aware the far-famed Sequoias, the giants of the forest, were
all about him.

A dim, strange light filled the place. The twilight was coming fast in
that far, lonely spot shaded by the close ranks of the Titanic forms.
He walked Bess slowly down the shadowy corridor along the line of
those straight giants, whose tapering spires seemed lost in heaven's
blue.

How long it took to pass a tree! Bess and he were but toys beside
them, yet he could scarcely realize their vastness till he slid off
her back, and, throwing the rein over her neck, started around one,
and lost Bess from view as he turned the corner and walked a full
hundred feet before he had encircled the monster. How ponderous the
bark, how strangely small the cones!

Mounting Bess, he rode down through the vast aisle of these monarchs
of the mountains. A feeling of awe came over him. The world of Gold
City and strife and jealousy and struggle, the realm of Mary Jane and
Aunt Eliza, the world of petty humanity, seemed far away. He was alone
with God and the eternities. Silent he stood, with bared head, and
looked along the monster trunks that stretched far up, up, up, towards
where the soft blue of evening twilight seemed to rest on them for
support. He found himself praying--he could not help it. It was the
litany of his soul rising with Nature's silent prayer: "Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." All through he said it, to
the reverent "Amen," then, putting on his hat, rode on toward the
farther grove.

[Illustration: "Grizzly Giant," Mariposa Grove.]

On he went past "Grizzly Giant," standing lone and bare, its foliage
gone, its old age come--"Grizzly Giant," which was old before Christ
was born; on by vigorous saplings, already rivals of the biggest
pines. One time-worn veteran had succumbed to some Titanic stroke of
Nature's power and lay prostrate on the ground. Decay and many
generations of little denizens of the forest had hollowed its great
trunk like some vast tunnel. Job, looking in, could see the light in
the distance.

It was big enough for Bess and him--he was sure it was; he would try
it. So, whispering lovingly to the horse, he rode into the gaping
monster, rode through the dark heart of the old giant, clear to the
other end and on into daylight. Enthused by his achievement, Job
hurried on down the road and around the great curve, to see looming up
before him "Wawona," far-famed Wawona, the portal