eamed not it was like this!"

It was a wondrous valley. The mountain seemed to have been cleft to
make it. It lay near midway to the top, and ran transversely on the
mountain's side, its western or southwestern end being many feet lower
than the eastern. Both the upper and lower ends were closed by piles of
rocks and tangled fallen trees; the rocky summit of the mountain itself
made the southern wall; the northern was a spur, or ridge, nearly
vertical, and covered thick with pine-trees. A man might roam years
on the mountain and not find this cleft. At the upper end gushed out
a crystal spring, which trickled rather than ran, in a bed of marshy
green, the entire length of the valley, disappeared in the rocks at the
lower end, and came out no more; many times Alessandro had searched for
it lower down, but could find no trace of it. During the summer, when
he was hunting with Jeff, he had several times climbed the wall and
descended it on the inner side, to see if the rivulet still ran; and, to
his joy, had found it the same in July as in January. Drought could not
harm it, then. What salvation in such a spring! And the water was pure
and sweet as if it came from the skies.

A short distance off was another ridge or spur of the mountain, widening
out into almost a plateau. This was covered with acorn-bearing oaks; and
under them were flat stones worn into hollows, where bygone generations
of Indians had ground the nuts into meal. Generations long bygone
indeed, for it was not in the memory of the oldest now living, that
Indians had ventured so high up as this on San Jacinto. It was held to
be certain death to climb to its summit, and foolhardy in the extreme to
go far up its sides.

There was exhilaration in the place. It brought healing to both
Alessandro and Ramona. Even the bitter grief for the baby's death was
soothed. She did not seem so far off, since they had come so much nearer
to the sky. They lived at first in a tent; no time to build a house,
till the wheat and vegetables were planted. Alessandro was surprised,
when he came to the ploughing, to see how much good land he had. The
valley thrust itself, in inlets and coves, into the very rocks of its
southern wall; lovely sheltered nooks these were, where he hated to
wound the soft, flower-filled sward with his plough. As soon as the
planting was done, he began to fell trees for the house. No mournful
gray adobe this time, but walls of hewn pine, with half the b