Let us follow now the zigzag trail that leads to the gap just where the valley and the lake unite.
Better dismount, for wagons never have been, nor ever will go down that bluff. Horses, indeed, need a rough-lock to get down in safety. Oh! but this is steep; we are now half-way down,—let us rest, and meanwhile take your field-glass and “see what we can see.” Why! it don’t look as it did from the top of the bluff. Oh! I see now why you call this place the
“Lava Beds.” From this stand-point it presents the appearance of a broken sea, that had, when in wild commotion, suddenly frozen or crystallized; except that the surface is a grayish color. Sage brush grows out from the crevices of the rock, and, occasionally, “bunch grass” may be seen.
Near the foot of the bluff is a small flat of a few acres that is free from rocks. A bay from the lake makes up into the rocky field; then a long point of stony land runs out into the lake.
Follow the shore-line, and another bay, or arm of the lake, runs out into the lava rocks. Look carefully, and, on the next point of lava rocks, running into the lake, you will discover a gray smoke rising. There, if you will steady your glass, you will see dark forms moving round about the fire.
They are not more than two miles from our point of observation, and this is the 16th day of June, 1873.
See that man standing above the others. He is talking. Wonder who he is, and what he is saying. Since we are talking of Indians, suppose we adopt Indian spiritualism, and in that invisible capacity we will hear and see what is going on.
We will pick our way over the dim, crooked trail, first in real person, and take items as we pass along. The trail is very dim, it is true—only seen by the rocks misplaced to make footing for the Indian ponies. Now we wind around some low stony point, and pick our way down into a rocky chasm.
Slowly rising, we climb up twenty feet of bluff, and out on a plateau. Looking carefully for the road, we follow a half-round circle of two hundred feet on the left; and, sloping from every direction, the broken lava
rocks tend toward a common centre, forty feet below the level of the plateau. As we pursue our way another great basin is in sight, of similar character and proportion; and thus this plateau, that appeared almost smooth from the mountain-top, is made up of a succession of basins, all lined with broken rock, from the size of a dry-goods box to that of a meeting-house.