They were drawing near the great gray boundary-wall of the valley, and the sound of roaring water grew tumultuous as they rounded the curve in the road and came into the little triangular nook which had been anciently formed by the Colorow as it descended in power from its source in the high parks. On the left the ledges rose almost sheer for a thousand feet, and from the edge of this cliff ore-buckets, a-slide on invisible cables, appeared in the sky, swooping like eagles, silently dropping one by one, to disappear, tamely as doves, in the gable end of a huge, drab-colored mill which stood upon the flat beside the stream. Beyond the mill Mount Ignacio rose darkly purple, hooded in white clouds.
The entire scene was typical of the West, of its energy, its greed, and its faith. Here was life--life and buoyant health--and the blood of the young scientist quickened as he comprehended the daring, the originality of the miner's plan.
"Is this your father's enterprise?" he asked, in the hope of an affirmative answer. A man of this quality would hang the minister if necessary.
"Oh no. We've got to climb the hill and cross the upper Basin before we reach our mine. This is the ore from the San Luis tunnel."
She was, happily, of the sunny world now, and, with a gay smile, turned her horse into a narrow trail and called back to him: "We climb here." He followed, admiring the strength and grace of her rounded figure as her horse zigzagged up the steep acclivity. She was troubled by no problems at this moment. She was rather a daughter of the mountains, a sister to the eagles.
She stopped once or twice to permit him to locate the far-famed peaks rising one by one to the south of them, and the third time she drew rein he was a-foot, and she said, "We're almost to the top of this grade; it's easier in the Basin."
"I am thinking only of my horse," he answered. "You see, he is carrying a forty-pound saddle, and is not so fresh as yours. I'm sorry to delay you."
The Basin was a most glorious valley, bowl-shaped, green with grass and groves of aspen and fir, and flooded with a cataract of sunshine. All about it ran a rim of lofty summits, purple in shadow, garnet and gold and green in the sun. Here and there a prospect-hole showed like a scar, or a gray, dismantled stamp-mill stood like a disintegrating bowlder beside its yellow-gray dump of useless ore. Serviss, familiar with the rise and fall of the silver-miner, looked over the lovely valley with a certain sense of satisfaction, for he was able to reconstruct its beauty before that flood of devastating humankind swept up from the eastern plain. "Nature is reasserting her dominion," he said, aloud. "Mining is a wounding business--like murder."