"Where ancient forests widely spread,
Where bends the cataract's ocean fall,
On the lone mountain's silent head,
There are Thy temples, Lord of All!"
Andrews Norton.
As the trial and execution of J. C. P. Collins were the last acts in his worthless career, so they were the last but one in the courtship of Mat Bailey and Mamie Slocum. These comparatively young people were married soon afterward. They were married and did not live happily ever after; but they certainly enjoyed greater happiness than that which fell to the lot of their friends, John Keeler and Dr. Mason only excepted.
During a long life John Keeler reaped the reward of sterling integrity. To the end of his days he remained a poor man. But no one in all Nevada County was more highly respected. Not that he was much interested in what other people thought of him, as he strove simply to win the respect of his own exacting conscience.
Dr. Mason, having at last had the satisfaction of seeing one murderer brought to justice, felt that he might with dignity retire from the gold fields, where good Anglo-Saxon ideas of law and order were beginning to find acceptance. So he moved his family into the plains at the foot of the Sierras, where in the town of Lincoln, Placer County, they enjoyed a more genial and happy existence.
Mr. and Mrs. Mat Bailey also moved away from Nevada County. But Mat had become so strongly addicted to stage-driving that he could not give it up even to enjoy the continuous society of his bride. He might, for instance, have become a florist, and employed Mamie as his chief assistant. Instead of this he took her to what he considered the most beautiful place on earth.
He established his home in the meadows of the Yosemite Valley, where the clear waters of the Merced preserve the verdure of the fields the whole summer through. In midsummer, the floor of the Yosemite Valley is like an oasis in the desert. On all sides are rough, dry mountains; and if you follow the river down to the San Joaquin Valley it becomes lost in a vast parched plain. But between its mountain walls, where Mamie lived and where Mat pursued his vocation, all is beautiful.
From the mountain height across the river thundered the Yosemite Fall in all its glory, a sight that allures travelers from the uttermost parts of the earth. And down the valley a ways was the Bridal Veil, where Mat and Mamie paused to worship when first they entered that enchanted valley together.
Their first drive after they went to house-keeping was to Artist Point. Mamie felt that she never had loved Mat before as she did that day; for as he exulted in the glories of the valley, with Half Dome at the end and El Capitan standing in sublime magnificence before them, the scales fell from her eyes, and she saw in her stage-driver husband the poet and artist that he really was.
He was artist enough not to attempt to show his sweetheart all the glories of the Yosemite at once. He took the keenest delight in having them grow upon her. It was fully two months before they climbed up out of the valley to Inspiration Point, renewing their acquaintance with familiar scenes and experiencing more stupendous grandeur. It was two years after they came into the valley that Mat disclosed the most tremendous magnificence of all.