Show WHAT THEY FOUND ON MOUNT I NOb Ob Hill really much more than a name at that time No one seemed to dream of ot any kind of street streetcars streetcars streetcars cars other than those propelled by b horses excepting that marvelous cable line over Clay Cla street hill bill The Belle Union theatre was permitted to flour flourish flourIsh flourIsh ish and Harry Braham there sang his madrigals Billy Emerson had a whole theatre to himself and a following of adoring admirers and a fortune There was a Pike Piko opera house and the old California was filled nightly with people who wanted to see Frank Mayo play Davy Crockett and keep the wolves away You got to the Cliff House either by l hiring a carriage or riding on the street str Et car to the limits and gud then an omnibus to the beach and there any gardens there either And all that sort of thing In those days dars came John v riling what was regarded as good stuff in the newspapers There was a aBort aBort Bort sort of virile quality about his compo composition composition that took hold on the heart of ot you He Ho could get the tho human interest touch at a dog fight Now and then he broke into verse and the Incisiveness eness of oC it the swift uncovering of conven convention convention convention tion the stab straight to the heart of conviction that made an impression too Well went on that way way I for tor a while and then the tho edge seemed to lo wear off oft his compositions People said tid he lie h had grown lazy la He himself believed ho he simply had had a message to deliver and that he had delivered it and was done Changes come In the tl o chair of manag managing managing ing ng editors and trod that thai path from the fifth story window to the street HP lIt picked himself up and the next tl tle e people knew of ot him was in the re receipt receipt of a R Reno paper at the little drinking place which was to all Intents and aud purposes especially purposes the press club of ot that early earl San Sin Francisco These Reno sketches had bad no more ol ot the th original stuff than the spirit of them They had found an another another another other body He seemed to have caught the ilip significance of ot the tho coyotes co cry c the sigh of the desert silences in the night the th epic pic of ot the on the plains before shearing time and the diabolism i of the gambling rooms at 3 of ot S the morning People down at the bay fought for the Reno Rena pap paper r rAnd And An then there was another lapse The rhe coyote co ote simply barked bark d and the smelled very common And the desert at night was was cold and far from friendly Twenty years ears had passed pa away Only the old could continue observing For Forthe Forthe Forthe the most part this luminary was passing from the ken of the com cern common m mon crowd At Vt years the scientific fellows were getting briet notes potes from John whoever he lie might be beat beat beat at Alto Alta far tar up the tho Wasatch moun mountains mountains talus just about two miles s high nigh The letters fairly tingled with curious com corn combinations combinations of ot deep thought and amazing deep composition Readers found r stuff that read like Job and the Psalms and the th Law La of or Hammurabi The language was more than Oriental It t was w wa uni universal versal but It spoke familiarly of ot ele dc elemental elemental mental things And the ti savants gave their letters to the newspapers newspaper pers Once more the observers who bo persisted d from ancient times at the bay read the soul of ot John and knew he heWIS was WIS marching on and climbing higher There was such a n rage for the letters letter that they were read even after they be became b bame became came ame commonplace and the edge cd of their cutting had worn away So that men said Eald Old John must be fully three score years ot of age and hardly to be expected to continue long longon on tho the winy win Which was all aU right till fragments of ot new classics same came down from faraway Chimborazo fifteen thousand feet above sea level loel classics that made their author brother with the flood and Intimately understanding the mastodon John was speaking from the Inner tempes of creative re Ue forces forcer closer loser to the origin of or energy than other men menS S cared eared to io climb And there was a Jubilation lation in these thee the e fragments of r almost dell lc significance a R strain atrain of that thal youth which knows no limits or bounds and rejoices r In its strength It was wasa a strong man running a race It was as exudations from one who could riot not weary Thought action a n sensation an anticipation anticipation and understanding these were raised to the ninth power Oh it was good to get that word from the th glory at the gates of or the heavens he vens But that passed too and there were years when John remained only a name however remarkable So that when the quarrel over Dr Cooks adventure at Mount Moun McKinley waxed drove droye climbers up and up past the fifteen thousand feet teet ele elevation elevation past the eighteen escarpment of the glaciers where the photograph was taken tak nand and then on onto onto onto to the summit more than five miles mlle above the level leve of or the sea there they thay found round old John his nimble fingers jotting the translation of oC sparks In the rarified ether sparks that th t spoke from the narrowing measures of the solar system and proved the oneness of ot creation by b the response they the waked in the hearts hearth heard the tM wonderful I words S There they found him at the threshold of o his cavern which wound down dow to the warmth of or a a wonderful subterranean fire And there his wife wite attended them and his boys played ed before them And they knew that only the strong could live at the crest of the flood of ot life ute that only the mighty breathe free In iu the rarer air close to the sun |