The Irish standard., 1901-12-07

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all. 1t was hopeless lapse into
medicvalism, one would say. but at
the moment I could cheerfully have
seen the plans of the land company,
with all the prospective benefits to
the many which they contemplated,
come to naught to the end that this
sequestered corner of great natures
domain should not be married by dis
figuring plowshares.
This thought and it's entail rang
the reflective changes what time the
bronco was topping the swell from
which the settlement mt Valley Head
came into view. Curiously enough,
the clustered farmsteads and titled
fields of the small colony were far
from suggesting that they were the
precursors of the tidal wave of az
riculture and banality which would
presently sweep down the pleasant
valley in the wake Of the great irri-
CATION canal. Tie line between Wild
flowers and weeds is not sharply
drawn. The bull-thistle is a thing of
beauty MS a single plant, and it is
only when it becomes ruthless in
vatler that VIC wage war upon it and
strive to stamp it out. Macpherson's
cattle OH the rolling swells, and this
small seasoning of humanity at the
meeting-point of the mountains, were
the artistic accent in great natures
picture. But they sutiiccd.
At the summit OF the swell COM
manding view of the mountain
guarded strath of the settlers, I was
minded to turn back; but the club
footed one shifted the cool breeze
pouring down from the upper cam
yon and asked, horscwise, with
gentle tuggings and champings, for
n free rein. 1t was given, and we
driftcd on, past the deserted school
house, across the freshly turned fur
rows of the land compnny's canal,
and, in due course of leisurely equine
Standings, beyond the last farm
| house and so on up to the dam at the
canyon gateway.
Here was the battlefield upon
which Macpherson had elected to
fight for his kingdom. Tt was we'll
| chosen. Unlike the Six-Mile, whose
walls were perpendicular cliffs, the
upper canyon was a tortuous gulch
with PERCEPTIONS slopes rising sharp
ly from the waters edge. Below the
settlers dam the wedge-like rift
widencd and narrowed again, leav-
ing natural basin between noun
tain and hog back" which would
serve admirably as reservoir for
the great irrigation ditch. In this
basin the stream had deposited bar
of silt and glistening mica-schist and
white quartz pebbles, the age-old
washings of it's swift rush down the
canyon; and this was doubtless the
plncer-ground upon which Macpher-
son had filed 4 claim as discoverer.
His outline of the status quo be-
came clearly Ineligible. A dam at
the final narrowing of the gulch
would submerge the bar; and above
the basin it would have to be car
ried to an enormous height in the
V-shaped chasm to retain suf-
ficiently large body of water. I re-
membered the stereotyped reply of
the Mexican vaqueros to the "Grin-
go" pioneers and the Santa Fe trail
ers: "Carrajo! POGO mesa rio!" and
wondered how much farther up the
river the engineer of the Glenlivat
company would have to so to find
Mucpherson's "ready-made" site for
the dam.
1t was at this point in the medita-
tive excursion that the fire of Curl
osity was lighted, and Macphcrson's
mir Of mystery added it's armful of
fagots. There was no good reason
why a sick man who was at best but
a transient onlooker should trouble
himself about the matter, but Curl
osity knows not age, sex, or previous
conditions of scrvitude to maladies,
incllrable or otherwise. Wherefore
the onlooker must needs slide tremu-
lousy from the saddle, tether the
clubfooted beast to stunted tree
growing from n cleft in nearby
bowlder, and make toilful way up the
canyon.
Wyllamp's alternative came into
view beyond the second elbow in the
wedge shaped gorge. 1t was another
scooped-out basin, similar to the one
below; and blazed fir-trce with
hlue-pencil markings proved that the
engineer had already made his pre-
liminary reconnaissance. But the in
surmountahle obstacle to which Mac
pherson's mysterious hint pointed
was altogether unapparcnt. Aside
from the added expense of tunneling
n spur of the mountain for an outlet,
the upper basinseemedquitc as prom-
Using as the lower-more promising,
in fact, since less masonry would he
required. Was there anything in the
topography Of the canyon to forbid
the construction of the dam at this
point? To be sure, the steep slopes
were inclined planes of crumbline
shale; but the native granite could
not be far to seek in excavating. And
with the everlasting mountains for
his dam-anchoragcs, the engineer
might surely possess his soul in sc.
curity.
The sharp-pitched activity was
slippery with IN OVERLAPPING OF
broken shale and dry fir-needles. ]
; climbed a little higher to shallow
niche where u projecting rock
promised foothold, and sat down tc
try to puzzle it out and to gathe,
breath for the return. The thin
; Tipped breeze, with the kiss of the
snow-caps lingering in it's breath