ed to dodge that purpose, or
to have waited, or to have found some excellent reason why I might not
go; but all this quickly vanished, leaving a cheerful resolve to go
ahead.

From the two opposing mountain-walls singular, thin, knife-blade ridges
of stone jutted out, dividing the sides of the gulf into a series of
amphitheatres, each one a labyrinth of ice and rock. Piercing thick beds
of snow, sprang up knobs and straight isolated spires of rock, mere
obelisks curiously carved by frost, their rigid slender forms casting a
blue, sharp shadow upon the snow. Embosomed in depressions of ice, or
resting on broken ledges, were azure lakes, deeper in tone than the
sky, which at this altitude, even at midday, has a violet duskiness.

To the south, not more than eight miles, a wall of peaks stood across
the gulf, dividing the King's, which flowed north at our feet, from the
Kern River, that flowed down the trough in the opposite direction.

I did not wonder that Brewer and Hoffman pronounced our undertaking
impossible; but when I looked at Cotter there was such complete bravery
in his eye that I asked him if he were ready to start. His old answer,
"Why not?," left the initiative with me; so I told Professor Brewer that
we would bid him good-bye. Our friends helped us on with our packs in
silence, and as we shook hands there was not a dry eye in the party.
Before he let go of my hand Professor Brewer asked me for my plan, and I
had to own that I had but one, which was to reach the highest peak in
the range.

After looking in every direction I was obliged to confess that I saw as
yet no practicable way. We bade them a "good-bye," receiving their "God
bless you" in return, and started southward along the range to look for
some possible cliff to descend. Brewer, Gardner, and Hoffman turned
north to push upward to the summit of Mount Brewer, and complete their
observations. We saw them whenever we halted, until at last, on the very
summit, their microscopic forms were for the last time visible. With
very great difficulty we climbed a peak which surmounted our wall just
to the south of the pass, and, looking over the eastern brink, found
that the precipice was still sheer and unbroken. In one place, where the
snow lay against it to the very top, we went to its edge and
contemplated the slide. About three thousand feet of unbroken white, at
a fearfully steep angle, lay below us. We threw a stone over it and
watched it bound until