travelers. In contrast to their smartness, the brilliancy of
new-painted stages, the dash of the horses maintained by the Yosemite
Stage Company, our own dusty travel-worn outfit of mountain ponies, our
own rough clothes patched and faded, our sheath-knives and firearms
seemed out of place and curious, as though a knight in medieval armor
were to ride down Broadway.

I do not know how many stages there were. We turned our pack-horses
out for them all, dashing back and forth along the line, coercing the
diabolical Dinkey. The road was too smooth. There were no
obstructions to surmount; no dangers to avert; no difficulties to
avoid. We could not get into trouble, but proceeded as on a county
turnpike. Too tame, too civilized, too representative of the tourist
element, it ended by getting on our nerves. The wilderness seemed to
have left us forever. Never would we get back to our own again. After
a long time Wes, leading, turned into our old trail branching off to
the high country. Hardly had we traveled a half mile before we heard
from the advance guard a crash and a shout.

"What is it, Wes?" we yelled.

In a moment the reply came,--

"Lily's fallen down again,--thank God!"

We understood what he meant. By this we knew that the tourist zone was
crossed, that we had left the show country, and were once more in the
open.

XVII

THE MAIN CREST

The traveler in the High Sierras generally keeps to the west of the
main crest. Sometimes he approaches fairly to the foot of the last
slope; sometimes he angles away and away even down to what finally
seems to him a lower country,--to the pine mountains of only five or
six thousand feet. But always to the left or right of him, according
to whether he travels south or north, runs the rampart of the system,
sometimes glittering with snow, sometimes formidable and rugged with
splinters and spires of granite. He crosses spurs and tributary ranges
as high, as rugged, as snow-clad as these. They do not quite satisfy
him. Over beyond he thinks he ought to see something great,--some wide
outlook, some space bluer than his trail can offer him. One day or
another he clamps his decision, and so turns aside for the simple and
only purpose of standing on the top of the world.

We were bitten by that idea while crossing the Granite Basin. The
latter is some ten thousand feet in the air, a cup of rock five or six
miles across, surrounded by mountains much higher