“This is where the Power Company gets its power,” remarked Bob.

“Yes,” replied California John, drily.  “Which same company is putting up the fight of its life in Congress to keep from payin’ anything at all for what it gets.”

They gave themselves to the task of descending into the Basin by a steep and rough trail.  At the end of an hour, their horses stepped from the side of the hill to a broad, pleasant flat on which the tall trees grew larger than any Bob had seen on the ridge.

“What magnificent timber!” he cried.  “How does it happen this wasn’t taken up long ago?”

“Well,” said California John, “a good share of it is claimed by the Power Company; and unless you come up the way we did, you don’t see it.  From below, all this looks like part of the bald ridge.  Even if a cruiser in the old days happened to look down on this, he wouldn’t realize how good it was unless he came down to it—­it’s all just trees from above.  And in those days there were lots of trees easier to come at.”

“It’s great timber!” repeated Bob.  “That ‘sugar’s’ eight feet through if it’s an inch!”

“Nearer nine,” said California John.

“It’ll be some years’ work to estimate and plot all this,” mused Bob.  “If it’s so important a watershed, what do they want it plotted for?  They’ll never want to cut it.”

“There ain’t so much of it left, as you’ll see when you look at your map.  The Power Company owns most.  Anyway, government cutting won’t hurt the watershed,” stated California John.

As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer jumped startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.

“That’s more deer than I’ve seen in a bunch since I left Michigan,” observed Bob.

“Nobody ever gets into this place,” explained California John.  “There ain’t been a fire here in years, and we don’t none of us have any reason to ride down.  She’s too hard to get out of, and we can see her too well from the lookout.  The rest of the country feels pretty much the same way.”

“How about sheep?” inquired Elliott.

“They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all,” California John pointed out, “and we can circle the Basin.”

By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles through a magnificent open forest.  Undergrowth absolutely lacked; even the soft green of the bear clover was absent.  The straight columns of the trees rose grandly from a swept floor.  Only where tiny streams trickled and sang through rocks and shallow courses, grew ferns and the huge leaves of the saxifrage.  In this temple-like austerity dwelt a silence unusual to the Sierra forests.  The lack of undergrowth and younger trees implied a scarcity of insects; and this condition meant an equal scarcity of birds.  Only the creepers and the great pileated woodpeckers seemed to inhabit these truly cloistral shades.  The breeze passed through branches too elevated to permit its whisperings to be heard.  The very sound of the horses’ hoofs was muffled in the thick carpet of pine needles.