long the foot of the
cliffs; then the birds disappeared, not caring to dwell in such dark,
more than half-immured places. Occasionally a magpie could be seen
sailing overhead at an immense height, crossing over from one hillside
to the other, turning his head as he made the transit, to get a view of
the two peripatetics in the gulch below, anxious to discover whether
they were bent on brigandage of any kind.

At length we reached a point where the mountain side did not look so
steep as elsewhere, and we decided to scale it. From the railway it
looked like a short climb, even if a little difficult, and we began it
with only a slight idea of the magnitude of our undertaking. The fact
is, mountain climbing is a good deal more than pastime; it amounts to
work, downright hard work. In the present instance, no sooner had we
gained one height than another loomed steep and challenging above us, so
that we climbed the mountain by a series of immense steps or terraces.
At places the acclivity was so steep that we were compelled to scramble
over the rocks on all fours, and were glad to stop frequently and draw
breath and rest our tired limbs. My boy comrade, having fewer things
than I to lure him by the way, and being, perhaps, a little more agile
as well, went far on ahead of me, often standing on a dizzy pinnacle of
rock, and waving his butterfly-net or his cap in the air, and shouting
at the top of his voice to encourage his lagging parent and announce his
triumph as a mountaineer.

However, the birdman can never forget his hobby. There were a few birds
on that precipitous mountain side, and that lent it its chief
attraction. At one place a spurred towhee flitted about in a bushy clump
and called much like a catbird--an almost certain proof of a nest on the
steep, rocky wall far up from the roaring torrent in the gorge below. On
a stony ridge still farther up, a rock wren was ringing his peculiar
score, which sounds so much like a challenge, while still farther up, in
a cluster of stunted pines, a long-crested jay lilted about and called
petulantly, until I came near, when he swung across the canyon, and I saw
him no more.

After a couple of hours of hard climbing, we reached the summit, from
which we were afforded a magnificent view of the foothills, the mesas,
and the stretching plains below us, while above us to the west hills
rose on hills until they culminated in mighty snow-capped peaks and
ridges. It must not be suppo