A Phyllis of the Sierras | Page 3

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A Phyllis Of The Sierras
by Bret Harte

CHAPTER I.
Where the great highway of the Sierras nears the summit, and the pines
begin to show sterile reaches of rock and waste in their drawn-up files,
there are signs of occasional departures from the main road, as if the
weary traveller had at times succumbed to the long ascent, and turned
aside for rest and breath again. The tired eyes of many a dusty
passenger on the old overland coach have gazed wistfully on those
sylvan openings, and imagined recesses of primeval shade and virgin
wilderness in their dim perspectives. Had he descended, however, and
followed one of these diverging paths, he would have come upon some
rude wagon track, or "logslide," leading from a clearing on the slope, or
the ominous saw-mill, half hidden in the forest it was slowly
decimating. The woodland hush might have been broken by the sound
of water passing over some unseen dam in the hollow, or the hiss of
escaping steam and throb of an invisible engine in the covert.
Such, at least, was the experience of a young fellow of five-and- twenty,
who, knapsack on back and stick in hand, had turned aside from the
highway and entered the woods one pleasant afternoon in July. But he
was evidently a deliberate pedestrian, and not a recent deposit of the
proceeding stage-coach; and although his stout walking-shoes were
covered with dust, he had neither the habitual slouch and slovenliness
of the tramp, nor the hurried fatigue and growing negligence of an

involuntary wayfarer. His clothes, which were strong and serviceable,
were better fitted for their present usage than the ordinary garments of
the Californian travellers, which were too apt to be either above or
below their requirements. But perhaps the stranger's greatest claim to
originality was the absence of any weapon in his equipment. He carried
neither rifle nor gun in his hand, and his narrow leathern belt was
empty of either knife or revolver.
A half-mile from the main road, which seemed to him to have dropped
out of sight the moment he had left it, he came upon a half-cleared area,
where the hastily-cut stumps of pines, of irregular height, bore an odd
resemblance to the broken columns of some vast and ruined temple. A
few fallen shafts, denuded of their bark and tessellated branches, sawn
into symmetrical cylinders, lay beside the stumps, and lent themselves
to the illusion. But the freshly- cut chips, so damp that