As it had grown out of silence, so now it died away;
from a culminating shout which had seemed almost
in their ears, it drew itself away into the distance
until its failing notes, joyous and mechanical to the
last, sank to silence at a measureless remove.
THE SECRET OF MACARGER'S GULCH
NORTHWESTWARDLY from Indian Hill, about nine
miles as the crow flies, is Macarger's Gulch. It is not
much of a gulch--a mere depression between two
wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. From its
mouth up to its head--for gulches, like rivers, have
an anatomy of their own--the distance does not
exceed two miles, and the width at bottom is at
only one place more than a dozen yards; for most of
the distance on either side of the little brook which
drains it in winter, and goes dry in the early spring,
there is no level ground at all; the steep slopes of the
hills, covered with an almost inpenetrable growth of
manzanita and chemisal, are parted by nothing but
the width of the watercourse. No one but an occa-
sional enterprising hunter of the vicinity ever goes
into Macarger's Gulch, and five miles away it is un-
known, even by name. Within that distance in any
direction are far more conspicuous topographical
features without names, and one might try in vain
to ascertain by local inquiry the origin of the name
of this one.
About midway between the head and the mouth
of Macarger's Gulch, the hill on the right as you
ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short dry one,
and at the junction of the two is a level space of two
or three acres, and there a few years ago stood an
old board house containing one small room.
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