es upon the snowy summits of the twin peaks, Gray's all asmile in the
sunshine, and Torrey's--or did we only imagine it?--relenting a little
now that he was looking upon us for the last time. Did the mountains and
the white-crowns call after us, "Auf wiedersehen!" or was that only
imagination too?

PLEASANT OUTINGS

[Illustration: PLATE VII

RUDDY DUCK--_Erismatura rubida_
(Lower figure, male; upper, female)]

One of our pleasantest trips was taken up South Platte Canyon, across
South Park, and over the range to Breckenridge. The town lies in the
valley of the Blue River, the famous Ten Mile Range, with its numerous
peaks and bold and rugged contour, standing sentinel on the west. Here
we found many birds, but as few of them were new, I need not stop to
enter into special detail.

At the border of the town I found my first green-tailed towhee's nest,
which will be described in the last chapter. A pair of mountain
bluebirds had snuggled their nest in a cranny of one of the cottages,
and an entire family of blues were found on the pine-clad slope beyond
the stream; white-crowned sparrows were plentiful in the copses and far
up the bushy ravines and mountain sides; western chippies rang their
silvery peals; violet-green swallows wove their invisible fabrics
overhead; juncos and Audubon's warblers proclaimed their presence in
many a remote ingle by their little trills; and Brewer's blackbirds
"chacked" their remonstrance at every intrusion into their demesnes;
while in many a woodsy or bushy spot the long-crested jays rent the air
with their raucous outcries; nor were the broad-tailed hummers wanting
on this side of the range, and of course their saucy buzzing was heard
wherever they darted through the air.

An entire day was spent in ascending and descending Peak Number Eight,
one of the boldest of the jutting crags of the Ten Mile Range; otherwise
it is called Tillie Ann, in honor of the first white woman known to
scale its steep and rugged wall to the summit. She must have been a
brave and hardy woman, and certainly deserves a monument of some kind in
memory of her achievement, although it falls to the lot of few persons
to have their deeds celebrated by a towering mountain for a memorial.
While not as high by at least a thousand feet as Gray's Peak, it was
fully as difficult of access. A high ridge of snow, which we surmounted
with not a little pride and exhilaration, lay on its eastern acclivity
within