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III. IN DIALECTTHE HAWK`S NEST(SIERRAS)
We checked our pace, the red road sharply rounding;
We heard the troubled flow
Of the dark olive depths of pines resounding
A thousand feet below. Above the tumult of the canyon lifted,
The gray hawk breathless hung,
Or on the hill a winged shadow drifted
Where furze and thorn-bush clung; Or where half-way the mountain side was furrowed
With many a seam and scar;
Or some abandoned tunnel dimly burrowed,--
A mole-hill seen so far. We looked in silence down across the distant
Unfathomable reach:
A silence broken by the guide`s consistent
And realistic speech. "Walker of Murphy`s blew a hole through Peters
For telling him he lied;
Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos
Across the Long Divide. "We ran him out of Strong`s, and up through Eden,
And `cross the ford below,
And up this canyon (Peters` brother leadin`),
And me and Clark and Joe. "He fou`t us game: somehow I disremember
Jest how the thing kem round;
Some say `twas wadding, some a scattered ember
From fires on the ground. "But in one minute all the hill below him
Was just one sheet of flame;
Guardin` the crest, Sam Clark and I called to him,
And,--well, the dog was game! "He made no sign: the fires of hell were round him,
The pit of hell below.
We sat and waited, but we never found him;
And then we turned to go. "And then--you see that rock that`s grown so bristly
With chapparal and tan--
Suthin crep` out: it might hev been a grizzly
It might hev been a man; "Suthin that howled, and gnashed its teeth, and shouted
In smoke and dust and flame;
Suthin that sprang into the depths about it,
Grizzly or man,--but game! "That`s all! Well, yes, it does look rather risky,
And kinder makes one queer
And dizzy looking down. A drop of whiskey
Ain`t a bad thing right here!"
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