Such were
the plain facts which skeptical Rocky Canyon opposed to the passengers'
legends. Nevertheless, some of the younger miners found it not out of
their way to go over Skinners Pass on the journey to the river, but with
what success was not told. It was said, however, that a celebrated New
York artist, making a tour of California, was on the coach one day going
through the pass, and preserved the memory of what he saw there in a
well-known picture entitled "Dancing Nymph and Satyr," said by competent
critics to be "replete with the study of Greek life." This did not
affect Rocky Canyon, where the study of mythology was presumably
displaced by an experience of more wonderful flesh-and-blood people, but
later it was remembered with some significance.
Among the improvements already noted, a zinc and wooden chapel had been
erected in the main street, where a certain popular revivalist preacher
of a peculiar Southwestern sect regularly held exhortatory services. His
rude emotional power over his ignorant fellow-sectarians was well known,
while curiosity drew others.
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