he descent
was but little more than one continuous soft, mealy, muffled slide, most
luxurious and rapid, though the hissing, swishing speed attained was
obscured in great part by flying snow dust--a marked contrast to the
boring seal-wallowing upward struggle. I reached camp about an hour
before dusk, hollowed a strip of loose ground in the lee of a large
block of red lava, where firewood was abundant, rolled myself in my
blankets, and went to sleep.

Next morning, having slept little the night before the ascent and being
weary with climbing after the excitement was over, I slept late. Then,
awaking suddenly, my eyes opened on one of the most beautiful and
sublime scenes I ever enjoyed. A boundless wilderness of storm clouds
of different degrees of ripeness were congregated over all the lower
landscape for thousands of square miles, colored gray, and purple, and
pearl, and deep-glowing white, amid which I seemed to be floating; while
the great white cone of the mountain above was all aglow in the
free, blazing sunshine. It seemed not so much an ocean as a land of
clouds--undulating hill and dale, smooth purple plains, and silvery
mountains of cumuli, range over range, diversified with peak and dome
and hollow fully brought out in light and shade.

I gazed enchanted, but cold gray masses, drifting like dust on a
wind-swept plain, began to shut out the light, forerunners of the coming
storm I had been so anxiously watching. I made haste to gather as much
wood as possible, snugging it as a shelter around my bed. The storm
side of my blankets was fastened down with stakes to reduce as much as
possible the sifting-in of drift and the danger of being blown away. The
precious bread sack was placed safely as a pillow, and when at length
the first flakes fell I was exultingly ready to welcome them. Most of
my firewood was more than half rosin and would blaze in the face of the
fiercest drifting; the winds could not demolish my bed, and my bread
could be made to last indefinitely; while in case of need I had the
means of making snowshoes and could retreat or hold my ground as I
pleased.

Presently the storm broke forth into full snowy bloom, and the thronging
crystals darkened the air. The wind swept past in hissing floods,
grinding the snow into meal and sweeping down into the hollows in
enormous drifts all the heavier particles, while the finer dust was
sifted through the sky, increasing the icy gloom. But my fire glowed
br