Before long we arrived at what may be called the “jumping-off place.”  In reality it is a steep descent into the depths of a wide canyon, but earth has so lodged in the rocky slopes that they are covered with dense growths of trees and chaparral, so that it is impossible to see very far ahead.  Down, down, down we went, winding and twisting, curving around and dodging, but getting deeper with every zig-zag until almost as suddenly as we began the steep descent we found ourselves on a fairly level platform.  Hell Hole was reached.

The day spent here was a delightful one.  While Watson fished I wrote, loafed, rambled about, studied the rock formations, and wished for a week or more instead of a day.

Next morning we struck into the canyon of the Rubicon River, for Soda Spring, half a mile away, where salt and soda exude in such quantities as to whiten the rocks.  Here the deer, bear, grouse, quail, ground-hogs, and other creatures come for salt.  Indeed, this is a natural “salt lick,” and there are eight or ten piles of rock, behind which Indian and white hunters used to watch for the coming of the game they desired to kill.  Twenty years ago one could get game here practically every day.  The Washoes used to descend the western slope as far as this; the men for deer, the women for acorns, though they had to be on the alert as the Sierra Indians resented their intrusion.

Right and left as we rode on there were great “islands” of granite, fifty to one hundred feet high, masses that either had been hurled from the heights above in some cataclysm, or planed to their present shape by long-forgotten glaciers.  These granite masses alternate with flower and shrub-bestrewed meadows that once were glacial lakes.  At times we found ourselves in a dense forest where the trees were ancient monarchs, whose solitudes had never been disturbed by stroke of ax, or grate of saw.  Clumps of dogwood and chaparral of a dozen kinds confuse the tyro, and he loses all sense of direction.  Only the instinct that makes a real mountain and forest guide could enable one successfully to navigate these overgrown wilds, for we were now wandering up a region where trails had been abandoned for years.  Here and there, when we came to the rocky slopes “ducks"[2] in confusing variety were found but scarce a sign of a trail, and the “blazes” on the trees were more confusing than if we had been left to our own devices.

Yellow jackets’ nests hung from many branches, and we were now and then pestered by the flying creatures themselves.  Then we had a good laugh.  Our pack-horse, Shoshone, got between two trees.  His head could pass but his pack couldn’t, and there he stood struggling to pull through.  He couldn’t do it, but stupidly he would not back up.  Talk about horse-sense!  A burro would have backed up in a minute, but most horses would struggle in such a place until they died.

[Footnote 2:  Ducks are small piles of stone so placed as to denote the course of the trail.]