MIRROR LAKE, SLEEPING WATER.
One of the brightest pupils in the primary class is a little Indian girl. This daughter of the red man reads well and is very proud of her accomplishment. She learned the multiplication table before the other members of her class, but does not apply it so readily.
“Tempus Fugit,” we bid farewell to YoSemite, lovely vale, and take the trail over the mountains. The hour was morning’s prime.
Up we go three thousand feet, mules, guides and tourists, over a narrow trail that runs along the rocky ledge of the gorge. The purple atmosphere hangs like a veil over the wild cañon down which sweeps the Merced river, dashing and sparkling over rocks, tumbling over precipices or placidly flowing over its smooth rock bed.
Far above a red flame swept and we caught the odor of Calypso’s fire of cedar wood. The rising smoke mingled with the blue haze above, while the fire swept on, leaving only the blackened, charred remains of the once green forest to tell the tale.
Naiads danced in the sunny water and once methought I heard the soft, low strains of a flute played by a faun in the cool shadows of the trees which overhang the river’s brink.
Not a faun did we see, however, but we met a fool, forsooth, a motley, merry fool. This fool had a silken scarf draped about his foolish head to ward off the warm glances of Old Sol as he peered down the gorge to see what the fool was about. He tripped lightly along, did this merry fool, slipping past the sturdy little mules and their riders on the trail so narrow that one foot of the rider hung over the gorge below, so narrow in many places that one misstep of the faithful little beast meant death to himself and his rider. Past the forty tourists went this untiring fool, frightening the animals and alarming their riders with his strange headdress.
Where were the guides? Right there saying things about the fool, quieting the animals and calming the fears of their riders.
When this remarkably agile fool had reached the head of the caravan, down he would drop in the shade of a tree, his feet dangling in the dust of the trail, his Turkish headdress fluttering in the breeze, again causing the weary climbers to pause. Not every animal paused to look at the fool, the older ones were wiser.