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Show CHAPTER IV. GEFFROY'S TRIALS. WE sat, my partner Robert Geffroy and I, upon the rocky slope of Griffith Mountain, that looks down upon Georgetown, Colorado. Two thousand feet below us the city seemed sunk in. a great cleft in the earth ; around it rose on all sides precipitous mountains, their summits still covered with snow, though the June sun shone Avarm upon them, and the little pools fed by rivulets from the snow banks were bordered by bright flowers. At our feet the brawling brook formed a clear pool, the usual resting place of those who walked to the summit; a little below it plunged by a series of musical cascades into a granite cafion, and was lost among the foot hills. While our side of the mountain was still in shadow, beyond the town the line of shade and morning sunlight crept slowly down the face of Republican Mountain. My companion gazed long and earnestly upon the sublime " WB SAT UPON THE . ROCKY SLOPE OF GRIFFITH scenery with that gentle melan- MOUNTAIN." choly which habitually shaded his fine countenance. At length his dark eye, beautiful Avith the clear depth peculiar to the Swiss mountaineer, moistened a little, and he fell into one of his rare poetical moods. I had shared Avith him the vicis-situdes of a miner's life, and had found the usually taciturn man of some fifty years a most pleasing companion. Never intemperate, as were so many of the older miners, never garrulous or boastful, there were yet times when some undercurrent of intense thought bubbled to the surface ; then, in free converse in our cabin, he Avas the most fas-cinating of men. His language, with just enough of foreign accent, 156) |