That was the trouble with California in the 1840's. The life was too easy, there was no necessity for struggle, and men must struggle or they deterio… - Louis L'Amour

Your pa had seven years at sea, mostly in foreign parts. You’ve heard him talk. He’s got a way about him, a way with words. He can make the temple bells tinkle for you, and you can just hear them big old elephants shuff-shuffling along, the priests callin’ folks to prayer and the like. Your pa learned a sight of things most folks never even hear of. I’ve seen scholars back off an’ look at your pa, amazed. You take these Injuns, now. You look at the way they live and you’ll say they don’t amount to much, but what are they thinkin’? What do they know? What memories do they have? They want different things, boy, and they consider different things important. Many a thing we’d give anything to know, they just take for granted. Some of these Injuns, maybe all of them, they’re in tune with something. I don’t know what. But some of them have lost touch with it, and others are losin’ touch. Goin’ the white folks’ way might seem the likely thing to do, but maybe they lose as much as they gain.

Courage and bravery are words too often used, too little considered. It is one thing to speak them, another thing to live them.

There are shadows for the shadows of things, as a reflection seen in a mirror of a mirror. We know there are circles within circles and dimensions beyond dimension. Reality is itself a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond.