ire playing odd pranks with the dancing shadows in our rock-roofed
resting place. Beyond the ghostly circle of the firelight were the jet
outlines of trees, and, farther, reaching up to a million stars, the
mountains. And beyond those mountains lay Olympus, for whom we had come
so far and now must go still farther.

The few unessentials of our commissary we left at the cave, and with
grub for five days and bedding on our backs, and the ice axes in our
hands, like the bear of the song, we started over the mountain to see
what we could see.

A steep snow chute called the Dodwell and Rickson Pass was our way of
passage over the divide to the Queets Basin, where the river of that
name commenced its journey to the Pacific, while behind us the melting
snows that formed the Elwha found outlet eastward in Puget Sound. As we
trudged up the steep slopes of the Pass it was soon apparent that other
travelers beside ourselves used the snowy route, for broad tracks showed
where bruin on his own broad bottom had coasted down the incline but a
few hours previously, a recreation youthful bears seem to enjoy about as
thoroughly as men cubs. There was indeed a goodly population of bear in
the upper regions of the Queets, and the hide of one of them is at my
fireside now. It would have been no trick at all to kill several, for we
saw them daily foraging among the blueberry uplands, with their pink
tongues snaking out first on one side, then on the other, garnering in
the fruit from the low bushes. But we could pack only one skin, so we
left the others warming their owners, where they most properly belonged.

Queets Basin is a rough mountain valley, covered for the most part only
with berry bushes, and with rocky gorges cutting its surface where the
river's several branches had worn away deep courses. Overshadowing the
basin were the outposts of Olympus itself, with the snout of Humes's
glacier thrusting its icy seracs almost into the berry land, and the
pinnacled peaks behind rising majestically against the northern
skyline. Westward, the roaring Queets vanished down a canyon, through a
country of the roughest kind, and, we were told, one hitherto
unexplored. A journey to the sea following the white-watered Queets
would be a worth-while experience, we thought, seeing the first mile of
it; but like many another, the Mountain Climber and I, unless we live to
the age of Methuselah and devote all our years to outings, will never be
able to t