the tops of the stately pines.

In the afternoon we made our way, with not a little laborious effort, to
the farther end of the lake, across which a red-shafted flicker would
occasionally wing its galloping flight; thence through a wilderness of
large rocks and fallen pines to a beckoning ridge, where, to our
surprise, another beautiful aqueous sheet greeted our vision in the
valley beyond. Descending to its shores, we had still another
surprise--its waters were brown instead of green. Here were two mountain
lakes not more than a quarter of a mile apart, one of which was green
and the other brown, each with a beauty all its own. In the brown lake
near the shore there were glints of gold as the sun shone through its
ripples on the rocks at the bottom. Afterwards we learned that the name
of this liquid gem was Clear Lake, and that the western branch of Clear
Creek flows through it, tarrying a while to sport and dally with the
sunbeams. While Green Lake was embowered in a forest of pine, its
companion lay in the open sunlight, unflecked by the shadow of a tree.

At the upper end of Clear Lake we found a green, bosky and bushy corner,
which formed the summer tryst of white-crowned sparrows, Wilson's
warblers, and broad-tailed humming-birds, none of which could find a
suitable habitat on the rocky, forest-locked shores of Green Lake. A
pigeon hawk, I regretted to note, had settled among the bushes, and was
watching for quarry, making the only fly in the amber of the enchanted
spot. A least flycatcher flitted about in the copse some distance up a
shallow runway. I trudged up the valley about a mile above Clear Lake,
and found a green, open meadow, with clumps of bushes here and there, in
which a few white-crowned sparrows and Wilson's warblers had taken up at
least a temporary dwelling; but the wind was blowing shiveringly from
the snow-capped mountains not many miles away, and there was still a
wintry aspect about the vale. The cold evidently affected the birds as
it did myself, for they lisped only a few bars of song in a half-hearted
way. Evening was approaching, and the two travellers--the human ones, I
mean--started on the trail down the valleys and canyons toward
Georgetown, which they reached at dusk, tired, but thankful for the
privilege of spending an idyllic day among their winged companions.

[Illustration: _Pigeon Hawk_

"_Watching for quarry_"]

Following a wagon road, the next day, across a pass some dista