"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.
"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly deepening of the
kindly wrinkles about his blue eyes.
"John," asked Bob, "were you ever in those big mountains there?"
"Baldy?" said the Ranger. "Lord love you, yes. I have to cross Baldy
'most every time I go to the back country. There's two good passes
through Baldy."
"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher mountains than
those?"
Old California John chuckled.
"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and then Stone Creek,
and then Baldy. And on the other side of Baldy there's the canon of the
Joncal which is three thousand foot down. And then there's the Burro
Mountains, which is half again as high as Baldy, and all the Burro
country to Little Jackass. That's a plateau covered with lodge-pole pine
and meadows and creeks and little lakes. It's a big plateau, and when
you're a-ridin' it, you shore seem like bein' in a wide, flat country.
And then there's the Green Mountain country; and you drop off five or
six thousand foot into the box canon of the north fork; and then you
climb out again to Red Mountain; and after that is the Pinnacles.
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