But There Was A Bashful Look In His Eye, And A Withdrawing, Deprecating Kink In His Neck That Showed Plainly As Words Could Tell That He Would Not Strike, And Only Wished To Be Let Alone.

I therefore passed on, lifting my foot a little higher than usual, and left him to enjoy his life in this his own home.

My next camp was near the heart of the basin, at the head of a grand system of cascades from ten to two hundred feet high, one following the other in close succession and making a total descent of nearly seventeen hundred feet. The rocks above me leaned over in a threatening way and were full of seams, making the camp a very unsafe one during an earthquake.

Next day the chaparral, in ascending the eastern rim of the basin, was, if possible, denser and more stubbornly bayoneted than ever. I followed bear trails, where in some places I found tufts of their hair that had been pulled out in squeezing a way through; but there was much of a very interesting character that far overpaid all my pains. Most of the plants are identical with those of the Sierra, but there are quite a number of Mexican species. One coniferous tree was all I found. This is a spruce of a species new to me, Douglasii macrocarpa.[14]

My last camp was down at the narrow, notched bottom of a dry channel, the only open way for the life in the neighborhood.

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