Captain Mayne Reid
"The White Chief"
Chapter One.
Deep in the interior of the American Continent—more than a thousand miles from the shores of any sea—lies our scene.
Climb with me yonder mountain, and let us look from its summit of snow.
We have reached its highest ridge. What do we behold?
On the north a chaos of mountains, that continues on through thirty parallels to the shores of the Arctic Sea! On the south, the same mountains,—here running in separate sierras, and there knotting with each other. On the west, mountains again, profiled along the sky, and alternating with broad tables that stretch between their bases.
Now turn we around, and look eastward. Not a mountain to be seen! Far as the eye can reach, and a thousand miles farther, not a mountain. Yonder dark line rising above the plain is but the rocky brow of another plain—a steppe of higher elevation.