[Idah Meacham Strobridge, In Miner's Mirage-Land (1904)]

 

 

 

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Copyright, 1904, by

Idah Meacham Strobridge

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Printed by the

Baumgardt Publishing Company

Los Angeles, California.

 

 

TO THE MEN OF THE DESERT; but more especially those miners who have grown gray while waiting for their dreams to come true, I dedicate these stories that I found in that land where I, too, dreamed dreams.

 

 

FOREWORD

          "The palpable sense of mystery in the Desert air breeds fables, chiefly of lost treasure. Somewhere within its stark borders, if one believes report, is a hill strewn with nuggets; one seamed with virgin silver; an old clayey water-bed where Indians scooped up earth to make cooking pots and shaped them reeking with grains of gold. Old miners drifting about the Desert edges, weathered into the semblance of the tawny hills, will tell you tales like these convincingly. After a little sojourn in that land you will believe them on your own account."

MARY AUSTIN,

In "The Land of Little Rain."

 

MIRAGES OF THE DESERT.

          AWAY back in the old days when the slow-moving ox team dragged its weary way, foot by foot, over the alkali flats and the long streatches of sun-baked soil, where the only growth was the gray sage and the greasewood—away back in those far days—the mirage, that Lorelei of the Desert, was there to lure men on to their destruction.

          Great lakes of shining water, where little waves ran up to lap the shore ; wide fields of clover and blue grass, that looked so green and cool under the burning sun; forests which reached miles away in a tangle of vine and tree—those were the visions that the Siren of the Dry Lakes showed to the water-starved emigrant of old, and—beckoning—led him on and on, in the pursuit of the unreal, until the picture grew fainter and fainter, and at last down the diminishing perspective of the vision—as he looked—he saw it fade away. The grassy fields where the oxen might have fed, the sparkling waters at which they might have drunk, the broad-leafed shade under which man and beast might have found refreshing rest, were gone ! A tantalizing glimpse of Paradise in the great and awful desolation of those Desert days.

          Many a poor traveler, led far astray by following the ever-calling, ever-retreating enchantress, has laid down

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at last to die alone in that vast waste, where his bones must bleach in the sun, and his dust must become the sport of the winds of the Desert.

          I can recall instances innumerable of emigrant trains deceived by the mirage and led far out of their course, in the hope of reaching the lakes of water that looked so deep and pure.

          Down through the valley of the Humboldt, in that part of the great American Sahara which the old emigrant knew so well, they traveled—they whose faces were set toward the land of gold and the setting sun. And there, as they passed along the banks of the long and tortuous Humboldt, they were told a fable that was believed by many a wayfarer of the early days ;—that, except fish could be seen swimming about, the waters of the river were poisonous if one drank of them deeply. So people became afraid of it, and went far out of their route to avoid, if possible, drinking the fatal waters of the "River of Death," as it came to be called. Then, when alluring lakes and ponds, and lovely forests and fields spread out, a picture of enchantment before their gaze, is it any wonder that they eagerly hurried onward toward the prospect held out so invitingly toward them?

          Only those who have suffered like disappointment can imagine the despair of beholding such a vision dissolve into thin air palpitating in heat waves over the wide plain—as far as the eye could see, only a shimmering haze.

          The mirage is, in very truth, a part of the Desert itself—just as the sagebrush, and the coyote, and the little horned toads, and the sand-storms are part. To those who know Desert-land, the picture would be incomplete without them.

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          Perhaps the commonest form the mirage assumes is that of bodies of water—from tiny ponds only a few feet across, to great lakes so broad that the farther shore seems beyond the range of vision. I have seen such lakes under the heat of mid-day sun when the quivering air gave them the appearance of crested waves, so like those of reality that were it not for my acquaintance with the topography of the country, as well as the knowledge that I had of the strange forms the mirage takes, I should have felt tempted to believe in their tangibility.

          In a few instances I have seen small boats on the surface, the reflection of them in the water being in perfect mimicry of nature's mirroring; and on one occasion, a great ship under full sail—though mistily seen, and seemingly far—rose and fell with the swell of the waves.

          Such of these as I myself have seen, have always appeared near the centre of some large alkali flat, where, upon almost any hot spring or summer day, small bodies of water may be seen reflecting the heavens with a deeper blue than the sky was ever known to wear. Sometimes, on the far side of these ponds you may see a wavering border of — — —what? You look, and look yet again; and still you cannot tell what strange things they may be. Not trees; not human beings ; neither are they creatures of the earth, nor of the air, that are moving on the opposite shore. It is something unreal, the presence of which you feel, but cannot explain; something you watch with a delighted fascination; something exquisitely intangible, like the dream of a dream, and as impossible to describe. It must be seen to be understood; no writer's pen, no painter's brush can faithfully portray it.

          Early Spring mornings, when the sun rising from behind the purple range of mountains, still cold and

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dark on its western slope, has filled the valley with a soft, golden glow, and lighted the mountains across the way till they begin to take on that delicate tint which only early morning gives, then far down in the valley where the East Range rises up at the left of the southern gateway, the mirage runs riot with its fantastic fashioning.

          The mountains alter their outlines so rapidly that the eye can scarce note all their changes. They change from great heights to a low chain of hills ; and leap back again, to shoot in spires innumerable into the violet sky, or drop into a long, flat table-land with overhanging top ; while, above—in the air—here and there float elongated islands that but a moment before were a part of the mountains beneath—mountains that are being pierced by gigantic caverns through which the sky can be seen. Then they disappear, and island and table-land once more unite; and again a myriad of pinnacles lift themselves from the mass of changing panorama, and the slender shafts reach far into the sky. Then—even as you are watching—one by one they dissolve, and the mountains have resumed their wonted shapes.

          Farther down the valley (for this is a particular valley I know, that I am describing here, and for more than a score of years it was my home; and in my heart I have named it the only Home I have—for we loved each other, the Desert and I) —before the days of track and train—there was a station built for the accommodation of passing teamsters. The building had been constructed of time-stained lumber, torn out of the old houses of deserted mining camps in the adjacent mountains. The small, dull-toned, unpainted cabin stood, uncompromising in its plainness, in the midst of a broad, staring, white alkali flat, where the owner of the sta-

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tion had previously assured himself of a sufficient water supply. For the establishing of such stations depends largely upon one's being able to obtain an unfailing—if only fairly good—supply of well water. And the location of this station—here in the very centre of a barren, snow-white flat—was the result of his having found the only place where water could be got, by digging for it, within a distance of forty miles. Travel to and from the mines northward was increasing, and with it came an increase in the station-man's sales ; for he not only had a "general merchandise store"—though of diminutive proportions—and conducted what he was pleased to call a "stable," but he set forth food for man as well. With his success, came the knowledge that it had created envy in the breast of another—one who would be a rival; for this other declared his intention of erecting at the same point on the road the emigrants traveled, a like establishment, and thus competing with him for their custom.

          Much bitter feeling was expressed, and many hot words passed between them. Finally the station keeper made a threat to kill the other man at sight should he ever bring material there for the construction of a rival house. Matters stead thus for some time, each man waiting for some decisive move on the part of the other. Then the one who claimed prior right to the location, taking his four-horse team, went in to Virginia City for goods to replenish his stock, which the fast increasing Idaho travel was reducing to a small quantity.

          On his return trip, when within a mile or two of home, he suddenly noticed opposite his own plainly built little cabin, a fine, large building of new lumber—the brightness of the fresh pine boards putting to shame his own unpretentious and almost shabby-looking house.

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          Enraged at the thought that his rival had taken such an advantage as the week's absence had given him, he reached back into the wagon, and got out his Henry rifle. With the cocked weapon laid across his knees—revengeful and determined—he waited impatiently for the heavily laden team to draw near to the spot where he was resolved that his threat, made weeks before, should be put into execution.

          There it stood! A two-story house of unpainted pine; its gable to the road, its front door invitingly open, its shutterless windows looking toward the South, as if watching his approach.

          He saw it all as plainly as he saw his own poor little home across the way; then—when within less than a hundred yards of it—there was a shivering of the whole scene, and the "opposition" station disappeared into nothingness, leaving but the one building there—the small, solitary house that for several years thereafter stood without rival on the alkali plain.

          With the going of the larger building, went also the station-keeper's desire for vengeance ; and scarcely a traveller ever stopped at his place afterward who did not hear from him the story of the strange mirage. The name "Mirage" clung to the place, and finally it came to be so christened by the railroad company whose lines passed its door. A siding is there for waiting freights that you glimpse as you flash by in a train made up of "Pullmans ; " but the railroad men—when you ask them—will call it "My-ridge." Shadow pictures waver about the place when the summer sun shines hot, but the station built of new pine has never reappeared.

          Some localities seem specially adapted to the conditions which invite a mirage. I know of a bush—a large greasewood—out near the middle of a certain smooth, level flat that is over two miles broad and fully twice

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as long, that during the summer months seems always to be wrapped in the mystic mantle of a mirage. Sometimes it has no definite shape, but always the mirage-like effect is there. A road crosses this flat two hundred yards away, and after I first observed the bush, I took pains to notice it particularly, scarcely ever passing it when the days were full of shimmering heat that it did not take on some semblance of flesh and blood. So repeatedly did this seem to occur that I came to call it "My Ghost-Bush," and watched it with an interest that was generally rewarded by having some apparently living form evolve itself from the greasewood's scant and ragged branches.

          It is apt to make the shivers run up one's spine to see a harmless looking bush, of a sudden, metamorphose itself into a tall man, and see the man come striding toward you with a long, swinging step ; and then—while you are still intently gazing, and wondering where he could have sprung from on that barren Desert bit—as suddenly discover that he is walking away from you—and backwards, at that. An uncanny thing, you may be sure ; yet one gets used to it, after a while, and to the knowledge that, after all, it is only one of the many Desert marvels. And dozens of times did I see this great, gaunt man go striding across the level, white plain, and then disappear as though touched by a magician's wand, leaving the lone greasewood standing there instead. Sometimes he seemed to be carrying a roll of blankets on his shoulders, as some poor wayfarers in Desert-land do; and at other times one could have sworn that he was visibly swinging a walking-stick as he went. There were days when the bush, instead of standing there so tall and thin, settled itself down into the semblance of some heavier body; and then one could see a sheep standing at the edge of a little pond as if

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nibbling at the grass that seemed to grow there. At times, it would lift its head as though it looked at you; then as the shimmering of the heat waves increased, it trotted away into the white glare of the summer sunlight, and was no more. Sometimes there were two objects instead of one; but whether moving away across the flat, or standing still by the little patch of imaginary water, their movements were always identical if the mirage was of two.

          Once, I remember, it seemed to be an awkward, half-grown girl that moved there; and the point of her big gray shawl—too big, by far, for her slim body —was trailing behind her on the ground.

          There have been gulls—ten or twelve seagulls—walking about in the shallow imaginary water, picking at imaginary weeds. And once when there was a large flock of them, and they began to melt into the ether, I found that there were real gulls among them—three of them—that had come far inland from their home by the salt sea, going toward the Lake that is Salt.

          But all of these things that were of the mirage-world and without the breath of life, whether slim-built girl, or the man who was of sturdier mould, or the sheep, or the seagulls—all had the trick of moving when I moved, of standing still when I stood still. Then, when I had driven past a certain point in the road, they invariably dissolved, leaving only the heat glimmering across the landscape, and the "ghost bush" there, quiet and alone.

          Once, in a rage at the mocking thing, I turned my horses' heads toward it, determined to drive onto it, over it, and crush it down. It irritated me to feel that I could not go by it there on the road without the senseless bush taking unto itself the likeness of some living, breathing thing. I drove hard and straight at it, and

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although there was not a particle of wind stirring the stifling air, yet that miserable bush was swaying back and forth as if waving defiance at me. Whipping up my team, I drove over it, the "off" horse crushing more than half its branches down to tin ground. A shiver that ran over me, in spite of the heat of that Desert-day, for the thing had become so real to me as a creature of life, that I almost expected it to shriek out in pain as its crooked, misshapen branches cracked and snapped under the hoofs of the horses.

          It has never been my good fortune to meet any of the old-fashioned ghosts that go up and down the earth with rattling bones and a musty smell—the kind that leave a splotch of blood on everything they touch, but I doubt if they are any more uncanny than a gray wraith evolved out of a greasewood bush by the aid of a mirage.

          We do not always recognize a mirage as such when we see one, or experience the "creepy" feeling that a meeting with ghosts is supposed to engender. Among the memories I have of things that were, in the gray country, is one of driving along a dusty road on a hot August day, and seeing some little distance ahead of me, through a blur of dust that seemed to rise from the road, a six-horse wagon driven by a man wearing a red shirt. The wagon, which looked to be heavily loaded with sacks of grain, appeared to have been once painted a bright blue, and the running-gear an equally vivid red—colors now dulled by dust and time. A cloud of fine, flour-like alkali arose about the wheels and around the horses' hoofs.

          With my thoughts elsewhere, though with eyes upon this not unusual sight upon the traveled roads of Desert-land, I watched it for more than a quarter of an hour, as it seemed to jolt and bump along its way. Although

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I was driving rapidly that I might reach it and pass it, and so be beyond the dust that seemed to be stirred up by the wheels, and which would soon be floating back and covering me, yet I did not seem to gain upon it. Finally I noticed that it moved only as I did. Then, when horses, and wagon, and driver, and the dust from the powdered white earth had disappeared, I realized that it had been but a mirage. Accustomed as I had long been to seeing them in all their varying guises, not for one instant had I suspected what it really was. I have counted it among the most remarkable mirages I have ever known of, because its coloring was so bright; the apparently new, vivid red shirt the man wore was a quite unusual bit of mirage color. For these Desert wraiths choose robes of dull grays, or browns that are dull and dim; unless it may be in the blue of sky and the water, or the green of grass and the trees.

          Then, I remember once seeing the red dress of a woman reflected in a mirage that took the form of a small and shallow pond that seemed to lie between that part of a "dry lake" over which a road passed, along which she was driving with a companion, and another point half a mile away where I was driving along another—and parallel—road. The bright color of her dress, the man's darker clothing, the horses (one black, the other white), the wagon, were all reflected with wonderful exactitude in the simulated water. These people I knew; and afterward; when speaking to them about it, they too said they had seen the mirage of the pond lying between us, and had remarked upon the vividness with which my reflection was shown there. Although we were such a distance apart, yet each of us could see the movement of the horses' feet reflected in the water. Unlike the former mirage I had

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seen where the red had shown with such brilliancy, here the color was real—only the reflection of the woman's red dress in the mirage-lake being the unreality.

          Of all the wonderful pictures painted by this artist of the atmosphere—and I have seen many—there was never one which in magnitude, in grandeur, in beauty of form and tinting, even remotely approached one which I witnessed in the spring of 1869.

          It was about two hours after sunrise—the magic time the mirage chooses for its most ideal forms—when I happened to notice that the portion of Eugene Mountain known as the Woody Cañon district was undergoing one of those marvellous transformations so frequent in the rarified air and high altitude of that section. The change from the dull reddish hue of the rugged mountain to all of the loveliest tints that the mind can imagine, was rapid. The early morning sun had filled the valley with a warm yellow light, and one seemed to be looking through a golden veil at the gigantic castle that fashioned itself from the mountain's rocky top. Turrets, and round towers, and battlemented walls; graceful arches, and windows, narrow and long, were all there—parts of a structure stupendously magnificent in its beautiful gradations of color, violet, purple and lightest rose. But even as with subdued breath—lest a sigh of delight or a word ever so softly spoken might dispel it—I watched its rare and exquisite beauty, it faded away, and again the rough contour of Eugene Mountain loomed up where the mystical, mythical castle had been but a moment before. Such a gorgeous representation of magnificent architecture in such beautiful coloring never again was presented to the delighted quartette which witnessed that bewildering fantasy of Nature.

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          To those who know the Desert's heart, and—through years of closest intimacy—have learned to love it in all its moods, it has for them something that is greater than charm, more lasting than beauty, yet to which no man can give a name. Speech is not needed, for they who are elect to love these things understand one another without words ; and the Desert speaks to them through its silence.

          To others—those who need words and want people in numbers—the Desert is but a gray waste of sand and sagebrush, lying in pitiful loneliness under a gray sky.

          Utter desolation! To-day is like yesterday—to-morrow will be like to-day. The sun rises each morning upon a scene which never alters, except when a change is wrought by the mirage in its illusive, elusive mystery.

  (end of Part 1)

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Idah Meacham Strobridge, In Miner's Mirage-Land (1904) - Part 1 (Foreword; Mirages of the Desert); Part 2 (The Myths of the Desert; The Secret Mine of the Brown Men); Part 3 (The Charm of the Desert; The Quest of Old Man Berry); Part 4 (The Lovers of the Desert; Forman's Find); Part 5 (The Lessons of the Desert; The Marvelous Hardin Silver); Part 6 (The Lure of the Desert; The Rise and Fall of Hardin City);  Part 7 (The Men of the Desert; Three Little Lakes of Gold); Part 8 (The Beauty of the Desert; The Lost Blue Bucket Mines); Part 9 (A Memory of the Desert; A Desert Mystery); Part 10 (The Toll of the Desert; The Graves of the Desert)