At Knoxville we forded the river at a point where a giant split bowlder made a tunnel and the water dashed through with roaring speed.  Retracing our steps for a mile or so we came to the Wigwam Inn, a wayside resort and store just at the entrance to Squaw Valley.  To the right flows Squaw Creek, alongside of which is the bed of the logging railway belonging to the Truckee Lumber Co.  It was abandoned two or three years ago, when all the available logs of the region had been cut.  Most of the timber-land between Squaw Creek and Truckee, on both sides of the river, was purchased years ago, from its locators, by the Truckee Lumber Company.  But Scott Bros., purchased a hundred and sixty acres from the locators and established a dairy in Squaw Valley, supplying the logging-camps with milk and butter for many years past.

For forty years or more this region has been the scene of active logging, the work having begun under the direction of Messrs. Bricknell and Kinger, of Forest Hill.  The present president of the Truckee Lumber Co. is Mr. Hazlett, who married the daughter of Kinger.  This company, after the railway removed from Glenbrook and was established between Tahoe and Truckee, lumbered along the west side of Tahoe as far as Ward Creek.

Entering the valley we find it free from willows, open and clear.  The upper end is surrounded, amphitheater fashion, by majestic mountains, rising to a height of upwards of 9000 feet.  Clothed with sage-brush at the lower end and rich grass further up, even to the very base of the mountains, it is, in some respects, the prettiest valley in the whole of this part of the Sierra Nevadas.

The upper meadows are full of milk cows, quietly grazing or lying down and chewing their cuds, while just beyond the great dairy buildings is the unpretentious cottage of the Forest Ranger.  Remnants of old log chutes remind one of the logging activities that used to be carried on here.

One of the most observable features of Squaw Valley is its level character.  This is discussed in the chapter on glacial action.

On the right the vein of quartz which out-crops at Knoxville is visible in several places and the various dump-piles show how many claimants worked on their locations in the hope of finding profitable ore.

Half way up the valley is an Iron Spring, the oxydization from which has gathered together a large amount of red which the Indians still prize highly and use for face paint.

How these suggestions excite the imagination—­old logging chutes, mining-claims and Indians.  Once this valley rang with the clang of chains on driven oxen, the sharp stroke of the ax as it bit into the heart of the tree, the crash of the giant trees as they fell, the rude snarl of the saw as it cut them up into logs, the shout of the driver as he drove his horses alongside the chute and hurried the logs down to the river, the quick blast of the imprisoned powder, the falling of shattered rocks, the emptying of the ore or waste-bucket upon the dump—­all these sounds once echoed to and from these hillsides and mountain slopes.