124 THE LOGf OF A TIMBER CRUISER 



gler. The story goes that this man afterward told a 

 wonderful tale of how, while hunting horses on the 

 morning of the massacre, he ran across a marvel- 

 lously rich mass of gold bearing "float rock." He 

 exhibited a piece of this as evidence of the truth of 

 his story and announced an intention of returning 

 before long to find the main vein. But he disap- 

 peared shortly after without leaving any more in- 

 formation than that. 



This is the local legend, and many have been the 

 hopeful prospectors to toil away an arduous season 

 in fruitless search for the fabulously rich " nigger 

 diggins," as they were called. We contributed our 

 mite of labour to this myth, but found no gold. 

 Brown, however, did discover in Vic's Park an old 

 nearly decomposed army pack saddle, and nearby 

 the bones of the animal which had, we supposed, 

 carried it. 



The park was also an excellent lookout point. The 

 surrounding country could be seen in all its wild 

 magnificence. And, as we gazed, something of its 

 wildness seemed to disappear. The grandeur, the 

 compelling solemnity of its spacious outlines, entered 

 our souls. There was a strangely familiar effect 

 apparent in the shapes of the vast, eroded rocks, in 

 the slender pinnacles, the pillar like cliff formation, 

 the whole grave spirit of the place. Frazer of all 

 of us first hit it when he called the conception of the 

 canyon "Gothic." That was it, indubitably. We 

 were amid a multitude of temples. The true spirit 



