to trace them all and study them! How
pure their waters are, clear as crystal in polished stone basins! None
of them, so far as I have seen, have fishes, I suppose on account of
falls making them inaccessible. Yet one would think their eggs might get
into these lakes by some chance or other; on ducks' feet, for example,
or in their mouths, or in their crops, as some plant seeds are
distributed. Nature has so many ways of doing such things. How did the
frogs, found in all the bogs and pools and lakes, however high, manage
to get up these mountains? Surely not by jumping. Such excursions
through miles of dry brush and boulders would be very hard on frogs.
Perhaps their stringy gelatinous spawn is occasionally entangled or
glued on the feet of water birds. Anyhow, they are here and in hearty
health and voice. I like their cheery tronk and crink. They take the
place of songbirds at a pinch.

_August 10._ Another of those charming exhilarating days that make the
blood dance and excite nerve currents that render one unweariable and
well-nigh immortal. Had another view of the broad ice-ploughed divide,
and gazed again and again at the Sierra temple and the great red
mountains east of the meadows.

We are camped near the Soda Springs on the north side of the river. A
hard time we had getting the sheep across. They were driven into a
horseshoe bend and fairly crowded off the bank. They seemed willing to
suffer death rather than risk getting wet, though they swim well enough
when they have to. Why sheep should be so unreasonably afraid of water,
I don't know, but they do fear it as soon as they are born and perhaps
before. I once saw a lamb only a few hours old approach a shallow stream
about two feet wide and an inch deep, after it had walked only about a
hundred yards on its life journey. All the flock to which it belonged
had crossed this inch-deep stream, and as the mother and her lamb were
the last to cross, I had a good opportunity to observe them. As soon as
the flock was out of the way, the anxious mother crossed over and called
the youngster. It walked cautiously to the brink, gazed at the water,
bleated piteously, and refused to venture. The patient mother went back
to it again and again to encourage it, but long without avail. Like the
pilgrim on Jordan's stormy bank it feared to launch away. At length,
gathering its trembling inexperienced legs for the mighty effort,
throwing up its head as if it knew all about drown