At last we turned the corner around which the station-house should come in view.
A thick, nauseous smoke was curling up from the site of the buildings. We came nearer. Barn, stables, station-house,—all were a smouldering pile of rafters. We came still nearer. The whole stud of horses—a dozen or fifteen—lay roasting on the embers. We came close to the spot. There, inextricably mixed with the carcasses of the beasts, lay six men, their brains dashed out, their faces mutilated beyond recognition, their limbs hewn off,—a frightful holocaust steaming up into our faces. I must not dwell on that horror of all senses. It comes to me now at high noonday with a grisly shudder.
After that, we toiled on twenty miles farther with our nearly dying horses; a hundred miles more of torturing suspense on top of that sight branded into our brains before we gained Ruby Valley, at the foot of the Humboldt Mountains, and left the last Goshoot behind us.
The remainder of our journey was horrible by Nature only, without the atrocious aid of man. But the past had done its work. We reached Washoe with our very marrows almost burnt out by sleeplessness, sickness, and agony of mind. The morning before we came to the silver-mining metropolis, Virginia City, a stout, young Illinois farmer, whom we had regarded as the stanchest of all our fellow-passengers, became delirious, and had to be held in the stage by main force. (A few weeks afterward, when the stage was changing horses near the Sink of Carson, another traveller became suddenly insane, and blew his brains out.) As for myself, the moment that I entered a warm bath, in Virginia City, I swooned entirely away, and was resuscitated with great difficulty after an hour and a half's unconsciousness.
We stopped at Virginia for three days,—saw the California of '49 reënacted in a feverish, gambling, mining town,—descended to the bottom of the exhaustlessly rich "Ophir" shaft,—came up again, and resumed our way across the Sierra. By the mere act of crossing that ridge and stepping over the California line, we came into glorious forests of ever-living green, a rainbow-affluence of flowers, an air like a draught from windows left open in heaven.
Just across the boundary, we sat down on the brink of glorious Lake Tahoe, (once "Bigler," till the ex-Governor of that name became a Copperhead, and the loyal Californians kicked him out of their geography, as he had already been thrust out of their politics,)—a crystal sheet of water fresh-distilled from the snow-peaks, its granite bottom visible at the depth of a hundred feet, its banks a celestial garden, lying in a basin thirty-five miles long by ten wide, and nearly seven thousand feet above the Pacific level. Geography has no superior to this glorious sea, this chalice of divine cloud-wine held sublimely up against the very press whence it was wrung. Here, virtually at the end of our overland journey, since our feet pressed the green borders of the Golden State, we sat down to rest, feeling that one short hour, one little league, had translated us out of the infernal world into heaven.
ON PICKET DUTY.
Within a green and shadowy wood,
Circled with spring, alone I stood:
The nook was peaceful, fair, and good.
The wild-plum blossoms lured the bees,
The birds sang madly in the trees,
Magnolia-scents were on the breeze.
All else was silent; but the ear
Caught sounds of distant bugle clear,
And heard the bullets whistle near,—
When from the winding river's shore
The Rebel guns began to roar,
And ours to answer, thundering o'er;
And echoed from the wooded hill,
Repeated and repeated still,
Through all my soul they seemed to thrill.
For, as their rattling storm awoke,
And loud and fast the discord broke,
In rude and trenchant words they spoke.
"We hate!" boomed fiercely o'er the tide;
"We fear not!" from the other side;
"We strike!" the Rebel guns replied.
Quick roared our answer, "We defend!"
"Our rights!" the battle-sounds contend;
"The rights of all!" we answer send.
"We conquer!" rolled across the wave;
"We persevere!" our answer gave;
"Our chivalry!" they wildly rave.
"Ours are the brave!" "Be ours the free!"
"Be ours the slave, the masters we!"
"On us their blood no more shall be!"
As when some magic word is spoken,
By which a wizard spell is broken,
There was a silence at that token.
The wild birds dared once more to sing,
I heard the pine-bough's whispering,
And trickling of a silver spring.
Then, crashing forth with smoke and din,
Once more the rattling sounds begin,
Our iron lips roll forth, "We win!"
And dull and wavering in the gale
That rushed in gusts across the vale
Came back the faint reply, "We fail!"
And then a word, both stern and sad,
From throat of huge Columbiad,—
"Blind fools and traitors! ye are mad!"
Again the Rebel answer came,
Muffled and slow, as if in shame,—
"All, all is lost!" in smoke and flame.
Now bold and strong and stern as Fate
The Union guns sound forth, "We wait!"
Faint comes the distant cry, "Too late!"
"Return! return!" our cannon said;
And, as the smoke rolled overhead,
"We dare not!" was the answer dread.
Then came a sound, both loud and clear,
A godlike word of hope and cheer,—
"Forgiveness!" echoed far and near;
As when beside some death-bed still
We watch, and wait God's solemn will,
A blue-bird warbles his soft trill.
I clenched my teeth at that blest word,
And, angry, muttered, "Not so, Lord!
The only answer is the sword!"
I thought of Shiloh's tainted air,
Of Richmond's prisons, foul and bare,
And murdered heroes, young and fair,—
Of block and lash and overseer,
And dark, mild faces pale with fear,
Of baying hell-hounds panting near.
But then the gentle story told
My childhood, in the days of old,
Rang out its lessons manifold.
O prodigal, and lost! arise
And read the welcome blest that lies
In a kind Father's patient eyes!
Thy elder brother grudges not
The lost and found should share his lot,
And wrong in concord be forgot.
Thus mused I, as the hours went by,
Till the relieving guard drew nigh,
And then was challenge and reply.
And as I hastened back to line,
It seemed an omen half divine
That "Concord" was the countersign.