t
the lower end and rich grass further up, even to the very base of the
mountains, it is, in some respects, the prettiest valley in the whole
of this part of the Sierra Nevadas.

The upper meadows are full of milk cows, quietly grazing or lying down
and chewing their cuds, while just beyond the great dairy buildings
is the unpretentious cottage of the Forest Ranger. Remnants of old log
chutes remind one of the logging activities that used to be carried on
here.

One of the most observable features of Squaw Valley is its level
character. This is discussed in the chapter on glacial action.

On the right the vein of quartz which out-crops at Knoxville is
visible in several places and the various dump-piles show how many
claimants worked on their locations in the hope of finding profitable
ore.

Half way up the valley is an Iron Spring, the oxydization from which
has gathered together a large amount of red which the Indians still
prize highly and use for face paint.

How these suggestions excite the imagination--old logging chutes,
mining-claims and Indians. Once this valley rang with the clang of
chains on driven oxen, the sharp stroke of the ax as it bit into the
heart of the tree, the crash of the giant trees as they fell, the rude
snarl of the saw as it cut them up into logs, the shout of the driver
as he drove his horses alongside the chute and hurried the logs down
to the river, the quick blast of the imprisoned powder, the falling
of shattered rocks, the emptying of the ore or waste-bucket upon the
dump--all these sounds once echoed to and from these hillsides and
mountain slopes.

Now everything is as quiet and placid as a New England pastoral scene,
and only the towering mountains, snow-clad even as late as this in the
fall, suggest that we are in the far-away wilds of the great West.

But Squaw Valley had another epoch, which it was hoped would
materially and forever destroy its quiet and pastoral character. In
the earlier days of the California gold excitement the main road
from Truckee and Dormer Lake went into Nevada County and thus on to
Sacramento. In 1862 the supervisors of Placer County, urged on by the
merchants, sent up a gang of men from Placerville to build a road from
Squaw Valley, into the Little American Valley, down the Forest Hill
Divide, thus hoping to bring the emigrant travel to Forest Hill,
Michigan Bluff, and other parts of Placer County.

It was also argued that emigrants would be