rk of the Merced; just six miles to
where, in the depth of the canyon, lies Wright's Cove Mine. In all the
far-famed Sierras there can be no more picturesque spot. If one will
take the trouble to climb the almost perpendicular ridge that rises
two thousand feet behind the old tumble-down buildings, long, low
cook-houses and superintendent's vine-covered cottage, along that
narrow, half-destroyed trail that follows the rusty tracks and cogs
and cable of an old railroad, up to the first and then on further to
the second tunnel, where a few deserted ore-cars stand waiting the
trains that never come, on still higher to the narrow ridge that
separates the south fork from the north fork of the Merced River, he
is rewarded with a view worth a long trip to see.

Let him stand there at sunset in the early spring and he has seen a
view worthy of the land of the Jung Frau and Mt. Blanc. All around,
the white-topped peaks of the high Sierras; far away, the snow banner
waving over the Yosemite; to the left of him, far below, like a river
of gold, sending up hither a faint murmur as it rushes over giant
boulders and innumerable cataracts, the North Fork, hurrying from that
ice-bound gorge which is the wonder of the Sierras; to the right, on
the other side, dancing down from the far-off Big Trees, threading the
tangled jungles of the Gulch, coming out through the dark green forest
like a rim of molten silver, roaring down past the quaint little
mining settlement, which looks half hid in partly-melted snow banks
like some Swiss village, comes the south fork of the river,
disappearing behind the mountain on which one stands.

The rushing stream, whose music is like some far-off echo; the strange
deserted village; the narrow line of dark rails up the mountain-side
through the snow; the gloomy, cavernous tunnels; the setting sun in
the west gilding all with its transfiguring touch--these give a scene
worthy the brush of a master-artist, who has never yet found his way
over the Pine Mountain trail to the South Fork and Wright's Cove Mine.

It was just such a day in spring as this, as Job came whistling down
the trail, gun in hand, looking for deer-tracks, that he thought he
heard the report of a gun up in the second tunnel. He had often been
there before; had climbed the trail and the cog railroad, played
around and over the deserted buildings, and gone swimming off the iron
bridge where the torrent was deepest. Once he and Dolph Swartz,