Sierra Club Bulletin. 



with his wife, his son, and partner, came to our aid, and 

 informed us that on the other side of the river was fine 

 feed, which he offered to show us, and the ford by which 

 it was reached. With great friendHness he took his boy 

 behind him and insisted that the one of our party who 

 was afoot should ride the lad's horse across the ford; 

 he advised us to reconstruct the pack of the short-legged 

 Skate, so that it might be well above the reach of the 

 water, — rather turbulent here, — and we soon found our- 

 selves safely across at the edge of a fine meadow, full 

 of the richest grass, where cattle were not permitted to- 

 enter, — choice grazing kept exclusively for horses and 

 for a few milch cows. This was Scaffold Meadow — ^the 

 name probably souvenir of a time when a cache had been 

 constructed by hunters or sheepmen high out of the reach 

 of coyotes. Our camp was established beneath some 

 ponderosa pines and under the shadow of a great rock, 

 away from the moisture of the meadow. Our supply of 

 water was drawn from two little springs, one of them 

 in the cavity beneath the roots of a fallen tree, where 

 the water was cool and clear. A creniere was quickly 

 constructed of a great fallen pine branch, its naked tip 

 sprawling over the ground like some antediluvian mon- 

 ster, and serving as ballast, while the butt-end projected 

 over the fire. This was supported by two rough crotches 

 interlocked, the charm of such a combination being that 

 it is erected without artificial fashioning, from material 

 at hand, and without the aid of any extraneous adjuncts 

 such as nails or thongs. 



The two following days were spent in exploring the 

 forks of the river. The first, we ascended the right- 

 hand branch, which flows through what is properly called 

 Deadman's Cafion, wrongly named on the sheet of the 

 Geological Survey — a pleasant enough tramp up and 

 back of fifteen miles. To our left as we started 

 was a lateral moraine, one of the largest to be seen in 

 the Sierra, its top a thousand feet or more above the 

 river and two or three miles long. Several strong 



