As the two gentlemen ride on, Hardin uses the confidential loneliness
of the trip to prove to the Creole that war and separation must
finally come.
"We want this rich land for ourselves and the South." The young
man's blood was up.
"I know the very place I want!" cries Valois.
He tells Hardin of Lagunitas, of its fertile lands sweeping to
the San Joaquin. He speaks of its grassy, rolling hills and virgin
woods.
Philip Hardin learns of the dashing waters of the Merced and Mariposa
on either side. He hears of the glittering gem-like Lagunitas
sparkling in the bosom of the foot-hills. Valois recounts the wild
legends, caught up from priest and Indian, of that great, terrific
gorge, the Yosemite. Hardin allows much for the young man's wild
fancy. The gigantic groves of the big trees are only vaguely
described. Yet he is thrilled.
He has already seen an emigrant who wandered past Mono Lake over
the great Mono notch in the Sierras. There it rises eleven thousand
feet above the blue Pacific--with Castle Dome and Cathedral Peak,
grim sentinels towering to the zenith.
"It must really be a paradise," muses Hardin.
"It is," cries the Creole; "I intend to watch that region. If money
can make it mine, I will toil to get it.
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