[Gutenberg 20695] • The Spirit of Sweetwater

Excerpt from The Spirit of Sweetwater

The Mystery Of Mountains

As the sun sinks

And the cations deepening in color

Add mystery to silence

Then the lone traveller lying out-stretched

Beneath the silent pines on some high range

Watches and listens in ecstasy of fear

And timorous admiration.

In the roar of the stream he catches

The reminiscent echo of colossal cataracts

In the cry of the cliff-bird

He thinks he hears the eagle's scream

Or yowl of far-off mountain-lion;

In the fall of a loose rock

He fancies the menacing footfall of the grizzly bear;

And in the black deeps of the lower canon

His dreaming eyes detect once more

Prodigious lines of buffalo crawling snake-wise

Athwart the stream,

Or files of Indian warriors

Winding downward to the distant plain,

Where camp-fires gleam like stars.