A SHORT CUT.
The trail on the grade was slippery with sleet, and walking upon it was out of the question. Running, jumping, and sliding were the only modes of locomotion at all practicable. I tried one of the short cuts, and found it an expeditious way of getting to the bottom. Some trifling obstruction deprived me of the use of my feet at the very start, after which I traveled down in a series of gyrations at once picturesque and complicated. When I reached the bottom I was entirely unable to comprehend how it had all happened; but there I was, pack and baggage, all safely delivered in the snow—bones sound, and free of expense.
At the Lake House—a tolerably good-sized shanty at the foot of the grade—we found a large party assembled, taking their ease as they best could in such a place, without much to eat and but little to drink, except old-fashioned tarentula-juice, "warranted to kill at forty paces."
The host of the Lake was in a constant state of nervous excitement, and did more scolding, swearing, gouging, and general hotel work in the brief space of half an hour than any man I ever saw. He seemed to be quite worn out with his run of customers—from a hundred to three hundred of a night, and nowhere to stow 'em—all cussin' at him for not keepin' provisions; and how could he, when they ate him clean out every day, and some of 'em never paid him, and never will?
I was not sorry to get clear of the Lake House, its filth, and its troubles.
Upon crossing the valley, which is here about a mile wide, the ascent of the next summit commences. Here we had almost a repetition of the main summit, except that the descent on the other side is more gradual.
At length we struck the beginning of Hope Valley. I shall always remember this portion of the journey as the worst I ever traveled on foot. Every yard of the trail was honeycombed to the depth of two or three feet. On the edges there was no foothold at all; and occasionally we had to wade knee-deep in black, sticky mire, from which it was difficult to extricate one's feet and boots at the same time. I was glad enough when myself and two casual acquaintances succeeded in reaching the solitary log house which stands near the middle of the valley.
I little expected to find in this wilderness a philosopher of the old school; but here was a man who had evidently made up his mind to withstand all the allurements of wealth, and devote the remainder of his life to ascetic reflections upon the follies of mankind. Diogenes in his tub was not more rigorous in his seclusion than this isolated inhabitant of Hope Valley. His log cabin, to be sure, was some improvement, in extent, upon the domicile of that famous philosopher; but in point of architectural style, I don't know that there could have been much advantage either way.
A few empty bags, and a bar entirely destitute of bottles, with a rough bench to sit upon, comprised all the furniture that was visible to the naked eye. From a beam overhead hung a bunch of foxskins, which emitted a very gamy odor; and the clay floor had apparently never been swept, save by the storms that had passed over it before the cabin was built. A couple of rifles hung upon pegs projecting from the chimney, and a powder-flask was the only mantle-piece ornament. Diogenes sat, or rather reclined, on the pile of empty sacks, holding by the neck a fierce bull-dog. The sanguinary propensities of the animal were manifested by repeated attempts to break away, and seize somebody by the throat or the leg; not that he growled, or snarled, or showed any puppyish symptoms of a trifling kind, but there was a playful switching of his tail and a leer of the eye uncommonly vicious and tiger-like. It certainly would not have taken him more than two minutes to hamstring the stoutest man in the party.
Between the dog and his master there was a very striking congeniality of disposition, if one might judge by the expression of their respective countenances. It would apparently have taken but little provocation to make either of them bite.