avert the danger. But the boat would float on, and the boulder descend
again, and then we could see that when we had been exactly above it, it
must still have been twenty or thirty feet below the surface. Down
through the transparency of these great depths, the water was not merely
transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects seen through it
had a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline, but of every minute
detail, which they would not have had when seen simply through the same
depth of atmosphere. So empty and airy did all spaces seem below us, and
so strong was the sense of floating high aloft in mid-nothingness, that
we called these boat-excursions “balloon-voyages.”
We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a week. We could
see trout by the thousand winging about in the emptiness under us, or
sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite–they could see
the line too plainly, perhaps. We frequently selected the trout we
wanted, and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his
nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an
annoyed manner, and shift his position.
We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather chilly, for all it
looked so sunny. Sometimes we rowed out to the “blue water,” a mile or
two from shore. It was as dead blue as indigo there, because of the
immense depth. By official measurement the lake in its centre is one
thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet deep!
Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in camp, and smoked
pipes and read some old well-worn novels. At night, by the camp-fire, we
played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind–and played them with
cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole summer’s acquaintance with
them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from the jack of
diamonds.
We never slept in our “house.” It never recurred to us, for one thing;
and besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We
did not wish to strain it.
By and by our provisions began to run short, and we went back to the old
camp and laid in a new supply. We were gone all day, and reached home
again about night-fall, pretty tired and hungry. While Johnny was
carrying the main bulk of the provisions up to our “house” for future
use, I took the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot,
ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the boat to
get the frying-pan. While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny,
and looking up I saw that my fire was galloping all over the premises!
Johnny was on the other side of it. He had to run through the flames to
get to the lake shore, and then we stood helpless and watched the
devastation.
The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and the fire
touched them off as if they were gunpowder. It was wonderful to see with
what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame traveled! My coffee-pot was
gone, and everything with it. In a minute and a half the fire seized
upon a dense growth of dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high,
and then the roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific.
We were driven to the boat by the intense heat, and there we remained,
spell-bound.
Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of
flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges–surmounted them and
disappeared in the canons beyond–burst into view upon higher and farther
ridges, presently–shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again–
flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side-
-threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them
trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and
gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-fronts were
webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava streams. Away
across the water the crags and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the