Chapter 12
The annals of the mountain-desert have never been written and
can never be written. They are merely a vast mass of fact and
tradition and imagining which floats from tongue to tongue from the
Rockies to the Sierra Nevadas. A man may be a fact all his life and
die only a local celebrity. Then again, he may strike sparks from
that imagination which runs riot by camp-fires and at the bars of
the crossroads saloons.
In that case he becomes immortal. It is not that lies are told
about him or impossible feats ascribed to him, but every detail
about him is seized upon and passed on with a most scrupulous and
loving care.
In due time he will become a tradition. That is, he will be
known familiarly at widely separated parts of the range, places
which he has never visited. I
