ficult reach I
could feel the head of the humerus move from its socket.

Muir climbed so fast that his movements were almost like flying, legs
and arms moving with perfect precision and unfailing judgment. I must
keep close behind him or I would fail to see his points of vantage. But
the pace was a killing one for me. As we neared the summit my strength
began to fail, my breath to come in gasps, my muscles to twitch. The
overwhelming fear of losing sight of my guide, of being left behind and
failing to see that sunset, grew upon me, and I hurled myself blindly at
every fresh obstacle, determined to keep up. At length we climbed upon a
little shelf, a foot or two wide, that corkscrewed to the left. Here we
paused a moment to take breath and look around us. We had ascended the
cliff some nine hundred and fifty feet from the glacier, and were within
forty or fifty feet of the top.

Among the much-prized gifts of this good world one of the very richest
was given to me in that hour. It is securely locked in the safe of my
memory and nobody can rob me of it--an imperishable treasure. Standing
out on the rounded neck of the cliff and facing the southwest, we could
see on three sides of us. The view was much the finest of all my
experience. We seemed to stand on a high rostrum in the center of the
greatest amphitheater in the world. The sky was cloudless, the level sun
flooding all the landscape with golden light. From the base of the
mountain on which we stood stretched the rolling upland. Striking boldly
across our front was the deep valley of the Stickeen, a line of foliage,
light green cottonwoods and darker alders, sprinkled with black fir and
spruce, through which the river gleamed with a silvery sheen, now
spreading wide among its islands, now foaming white through narrow
canyons. Beyond, among the undulating hills, was a marvelous array of
lakes. There must have been thirty or forty of them, from the pond of an
acre to the wide sheet two or three miles across. The strangely
elongated and rounded hills had the appearance of giants in bed, wrapped
in many-colored blankets, while the lakes were their deep, blue eyes,
lashed with dark evergreens, gazing steadfastly heavenward. Look long at
these recumbent forms and you will see the heaving of their breasts.

The whole landscape was alert, expectant of glory. Around this great
camp of prostrate Cyclops there stood an unbroken semicircle of mighty
peaks in solemn grandeur,