THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 



H3 



modest sort of self-respect, of which 

 he was as unconscious as he was of 

 his old slouch hat or his blue overalls. 



In straggling single file, with Rog- 

 ers at its head, our little procession 

 slowly mounted the precipitous face of 

 the cliffs, and at last climbed the giant 

 stairway beside the six hundred-foot 

 leap down, which the Nevada Falls 

 crashed and roared, and then, wet with 

 their spray, galloped across the pine- 

 shadowed levels to the foot of Cloud's 

 Rest. Thence we climbed the long 

 slopes of the mountain, through forests 

 of tamarack and black pine, over the 

 long, sweeping zig-zags of the trail, 

 which gradually unfolded before us 

 that marvelous panorama of miles upon 

 miles of granite peaks, at first towering 

 far above us, and then, as we rose high- 

 er and higher, seeming at last to lie 

 at our feet. But let some pen more 

 powerful than mine tell of the grand- 

 eur and sublimity of that awful expanse 

 of high-topped mountain domes — the 

 humiliation of soul that crushes the 

 beholder as he looks over the arrested 

 giant waves of that granite sea and 

 feels himself to be a mere powerless 

 dot upon its surface — and then the up- 

 rising of heart and outspringing of sense 

 and feeling, like a child leaping to its 

 mother's arms, when presently he un- 

 derstands that he himself is part of all 

 that wide-spreading, heaven-reaching 

 grandeur and freedom and mightiness. 



Ned Rogers stood by himself on the 

 summit of the mountain, looking toward 

 the east and south. The rest of the 

 party were throwing stones and sar- 

 dine boxes down the tremendous granite 

 slope, steep, smooth and impassable, by 

 which Cloud's Rest on the other side 

 heaves itself upward from Tenaiya can- 

 yon. From where he stood, one looks 

 over scores of miles of bald granite 

 peaks, tossed upward from green, pine- 

 covered depths, — on and on, far as the 

 eye can reach, nothing but waves and 

 waves of mountains, granite-gray on 

 the crest, pine-green in the hollow. 



"It's good to see these mountains 

 again," he said, as I stood beside him. 



"I've been homesick for the sight of 

 them ever since I quit guiding and 

 went to live down the river. Sometimes 

 I envy the men with mining claims who 

 live alone in their cabins scattered 

 around through the mountains." 



"Isn't it a lonely sort of life?" I haz- 

 arded. 



"No, not if you like it," was his 

 quick response. "You get used to hav- 

 ing the mountains all around you all 

 the time, until they seem like friends, 

 and you are lonely and homesick if 

 you go away. I've got an idea that 



that sort of company " he hesitated, 



looked a trifle shame-faced and kicked 

 a fragment of rock down the mountain- 

 side, — "that company of that sort is 

 about the best a man can have. I've 

 wondered sometimes what sort of effect 

 it would have on criminals if peniten- 

 tiaries were put where they could look 

 out on such a sight as this all the 

 time. According to my way of think- 

 ing, if there's anything that will make 

 a man out of a fellow living all the time 

 in such company as this will do it." 



"Did you ever happen to notice any 

 effects of that sort?" 



"Well, no-o, I never saw the effects 

 of living in the mountains upon crim- 

 inals, as I know of. But I did have a 

 curious sort of experience, myself, up 

 here in the High Sierras once. It was 

 that that first set me thinking. It 

 was about fifteen years ago, I reckon, 

 when I was guide in the Valley. 

 One summer I had to make a camp- 

 ing trip through these mountains with 

 a fellow who was out here for his 

 health. He was from New York, and 

 he belonged to one of those rich 

 families there — you know about them, 

 I guess. His health had got all out 

 of kilter, and he was wandering 

 around out here, under orders from 

 his physician, trying to set himself to 

 rights again. After he had been in the 

 Valley awhile, he concluded that a 

 camping trip through these high moun- 

 tains would be good for him, and it 

 happened that the job of guiding him 

 fell to me. I wasn't pleased with it, for 



