The Valley of the Giants | Page 5

that marked the old timber. It was May,
and Nature was renewing herself, for spring comes late in Humboldt
County. From an alder thicket a pompous cock grouse boomed
intermittently; the valley quail, in pairs, were busy about their
household affairs; from a clump of manzanita a buck watched John
Cardigan curiously. On past the landing where the big bull donkey-
engine stood (for with the march of progress, the logging donkey-
engine had replaced the ox-teams, while the logs were hauled out of the
woods to the landing by means of a mile-long steel cable, and there
loaded on the flat-cars of a logging railroad to be hauled to the mill and
dumped in the log-boom) he went, up the skid-road recently swamped
from the landing to the down timber where the crosscut men and
barkpeelers were at work, on into the green timber where the
woods-boss and his men were chopping.
"Come with me, McTavish," he said to his woods-boss. They passed
through a narrow gap between two low hills and emerged in a long
narrow valley where the redwood grew thickly and where the smallest
tree was not less than fifteen feet in diameter and two hundred and fifty
feet tall. McTavish followed at the master's heels as they penetrated this
grove, making their way with difficulty through the underbrush until
they came at length to a little amphitheatre, a clearing perhaps a
hundred feet in diameter, oval-shaped and surrounded by a wall of
redwoods of such dimensions that even McTavish, who was no
stranger to these natural marvels, was struck with wonder. The ground
in this little amphitheatre was covered to a depth of a foot with brown,

withered little redwood twigs to which the dead leaves still clung, while
up through this aromatic covering delicate maidenhair ferns and oxalis
had thrust themselves. Between the huge brown boles of the redwoods
woodwardia grew riotously, while through the great branches of these
sentinels of the ages the sunlight filtered. Against the prevailing
twilight of the surrounding forest it descended like a halo, and where it
struck the ground John Cardigan paused.
"McTavish," he said, "she died this morning."
"I'm sore distressed for you, sir," the woods-boss answered. "We'd a
whisper in the camp yesterday that the lass was like to be in a bad
way."
Cardigan scuffed with his foot a clear space in the brown litter. "Take
two men from the section-gang, McTavish," he ordered, "and have
them dig her grave here; then swamp a trail through the underbrush and
out to the donkey-landing, so we can carry her in. The funeral will be
private."
McTavish nodded. "Any further orders, sir?"
"Yes. When you come to that little gap in the hills, cease your logging
and bear off yonder." He waved his hand. "I'm not going to cut the
timber in this valley. You see, McTavish, what it is. The trees here--ah,
man, I haven't the heart to destroy God's most wonderful handiwork.
Besides, she loved this spot, McTavish, and she called the valley her
Valley of the Giants. I--I gave it to her for a wedding present because
she had a bit of a dream that some day the town I started would grow
up to yonder gap, and when that time came and we could afford it,
'twas in her mind to give her Valley of the Giants to Sequoia for a city
park, all hidden away here and unsuspected.
"She loved it, McTavish. It pleased her to come here with me; she'd
make up a lunch of her own cooking and I would catch trout in the
stream by the dogwoods yonder and fry the fish for her. Sometimes I'd
barbecue a venison steak and--well, 'twas our playhouse, McTavish,
and I who am no longer young--I who never played until I met her--I--

I'm a bit foolish, I fear, but I found rest and comfort here, McTavish,
even before I met her, and I'm thinking I'll have to come here often for
the same. She--she was a very superior woman, McTavish--very
superior. Ah, man, the soul of her! I cannot bear that her body should
rest in Sequoia cemetery, along with the rag tag and bobtail o' the town.
She was like this sunbeam, McTavish. She--she--"
"Aye," murmured McTavish huskily. "I ken. Ye wouldna gie her a
common or a public spot in which to wait for ye. An' ye'll be shuttin'
down the mill an' loggin'-camps an' layin' off the hands in her honour
for a bit?"
"Until after the funeral, McTavish. And tell your men they'll be paid for
the lost time. That will be all, lad."
When McTavish was gone, John Cardigan sat down on a small
sugar-pine windfall, his head held slightly to one side while he listened
to that which