"There," he said, "is old Eastman Johnson; he’s made the riffle on barns, and that everlasting girl with the ears of corn; but it ain’t life, it ain’t got the real git-up.
"If you want to see the thing, just look at a Gérôme; his Arab folks and Egyptian dancing-girls, they ain’t assuming a pleasant expression and looking at spots while their likenesses is took.
"H. G. will discount Eastman yet."
He avowed his great admiration of Church, which, with a little leaning toward Mr. Gifford, seemed his only hearty approval.
"It’s all Bierstadt, and Bierstadt, and Bierstadt nowadays! What has he done but twist and skew and distort and discolor and belittle and be-pretty this whole dog-gonned country? Why, his mountains are too high and too slim; they’d blow over in one of our fall winds.
"I’ve herded colts two summers in Yosemite, and honest now, when I stood right up in front of his picture, I didn’t know it.
"He hasn’t what old Ruskin calls for."
By this time the station buildings were in sight, and far down the cañon, winding in even grade round spur after spur, outlined by a low, clinging cloud of red dust, we could see the great Sierra mule-train,—that industrial gulf-stream flowing from California plains over into arid Nevada, carrying thither materials for life and luxury. In a vast, perpetual caravan of heavy wagons, drawn by teams of from eight to fourteen mules, all the supplies of many cities and villages were hauled across the Sierra at an immense cost, and with such skill of driving and generalship of mules as the world has never seen before.
Our trail descended toward the grade, quickly bringing us to a high bank immediately overlooking the trains a few rods below the group of station buildings.
I had by this time learned that Copples, the former station-proprietor, had suffered amputation of the leg three times, receiving from the road men, in consequence, the name of "Cut-off," and that, while his doctors disagreed as to whether they had better try a fourth, the kindly hand of death had spared him that pain, and Mrs. Copples an added extortion in the bill.