serve of
power after great exhaustion. It is a kind of second life, available
only in emergencies like this; and, having proved its existence, I had
no great fear that either of us would fail, though one of my arms was
already benumbed and hung powerless.

At length, after the temperature was somewhat mitigated on this
memorable first of May, we arose and began to struggle homeward. Our
frozen trousers could scarcely be made to bend at the knee, and we waded
the snow with difficulty. The summit ridge was fortunately wind-swept
and nearly bare, so we were not compelled to lift our feet high, and
on reaching the long home slopes laden with loose snow we made rapid
progress, sliding and shuffling and pitching headlong, our feebleness
accelerating rather than diminishing our speed. When we had descended
some three thousand feet the sunshine warmed our backs and we began to
revive. At 10 a.m. we reached the timber and were safe.

Half an hour later we heard Sisson shouting down among the firs, coming
with horses to take us to the hotel. After breaking a trail through the
snow as far as possible he had tied his animals and walked up. We had
been so long without food that we cared but little about eating, but we
eagerly drank the coffee he prepared for us. Our feet were frozen, and
thawing them was painful, and had to be done very slowly by keeping them
buried in soft snow for several hours, which avoided permanent damage.
Five thousand feet below the summit we found only three inches of new
snow, and at the base of the mountain only a slight shower of rain
had fallen, showing how local our storm had been, notwithstanding
its terrific fury. Our feet were wrapped in sacking, and we were soon
mounted and on our way down into the thick sunshine--"God's Country,"
as Sisson calls the Chaparral Zone. In two hours' ride the last snowbank
was left behind. Violets appeared along the edges of the trail, and the
chaparral was coming into bloom, with young lilies and larkspurs about
the open places in rich profusion. How beautiful seemed the golden
sunbeams streaming through the woods between the warm brown boles of the
cedars and pines! All my friends among the birds and plants seemed
like OLD friends, and we felt like speaking to every one of them as we
passed, as if we had been a long time away in some far, strange country.

In the afternoon we reached Strawberry Valley and fell asleep. Next
morning we seemed to have risen from the d