he vehicles.
Three good saddle ponies of the Indian variety were provided for the
ladies, while Jack and Cal made arrangements to get their saddle animals
at Lamb's. The road to the Half Way house was of the usual rough
thoroughfare, corduroyed in places, steep and fringed with pine trees,
whose uncanny whisperings added to an already semi-funereal gloom which
hung oppressively over the party. This was partially due to the
impressive monosyllabic advice given in low voices by guides, hostlers
and residents of the park.

After a restless night, just as the gray dawn of morning was breaking
through the eastern sky, the lengthening and shortening of stirrups,
changing of packs, wrapping up bundles of extra clothing and other
miscellany occupied the time while breakfast was being prepared. With a
good-bye to those who remained at the ranch, a cavalcade of a dozen,
including guides, started away in the crisp, frosty air, each one eager
to be in the lead, and on the return each one was contented to be the
drone. The sun was perhaps two hours high when timber line was reached.
Frequent stops for breathing had to be made and saddle girths adjusted
as higher altitudes and steeper grades were encountered. The
inexperienced noted the panting horses, but did not fully grasp the
terrific effort required to climb those precipitous inclines at eleven
thousand feet above sea level. Not a cloud, not a particle of haze
blurred the clear atmosphere. The pines soughed dreamily and waved their
needle tipped arms in a lazy, indolent manner, wafting fragrance and
vigor to the world. The trail wound its serpentine way around hill after
hill toward the monster peak, standing cold and aloof, riveted, as it
were, to the deep blue firmament against which it seemed to rest. As the
sky was approached nearer and nearer, the vegetation grew sparse and
stunted. Coarse rye grass in clumps few and far between gave evidence of
nature's provision, even at that altitude, for wandering deer or elk
that might be left behind when the great winter migration of the
restless bands sought the lower regions. Great boulders appeared more
frequently and the trail led the party over slide rock a great portion
of the way. The squeaks of conies and shrill whistles of groundhogs
could be distinguished above the clatter of horses' hoofs, for timber
line is their home.

At last the trees were left behind, the great boulder bed stretched
before them, an ocean of waste roc