he outgrowth
of the solid rock. They were vast ranges, apparently of enormous
height, their color indescribable, deepest and reddest near the
pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness,
till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of
transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on the
hue of sunset. Below them lay broken ravines of fantastic rocks, cleft
and canyoned by the river, with a tender unearthly light over all, the
apparent warmth of a glowing clime, while I on the north side was in
the shadow among the pure unsullied snow.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom;
With them the sunset's rosy bloom.

The dimness of earth with me, the light of heaven with them. Here,
again, worship seemed the only attitude for a human spirit, and the
question was ever present, "Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of
him; or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" I rode up and down
hills laboriously in snow-drifts, getting off often to ease my faithful
Birdie by walking down ice-clad slopes, stopping constantly to feast my
eyes upon that changeless glory, always seeing some new ravine, with
its depths of color or miraculous brilliancy of red, or phantasy of
form. Then below, where the trail was locked into a deep canyon where
there was scarcely room for it and the river, there was a beauty of
another kind in solemn gloom. There the stream curved and twisted
marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling
eddies, with pyramidal firs and the beautiful silver spruce fringing
its banks, and often falling across it in artistic grace, the gloom
chill and deep, with only now and then a light trickling through the
pines upon the cold snow, when suddenly turning round I saw behind, as
if in the glory of an eternal sunset, those flaming and fantastic
peaks. The effect of the combination of winter and summer was
singular. The trail ran on the north side the whole time, and the snow
lay deep and pure white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south
side, where abundant lawns basked in the warm sun.

The pitch pine, with its monotonous and somewhat rigid form, had
disappeared; the white pine became scarce, both being displayed by the
slim spires and silvery green of the miniature silver spruce. Valley
and canyon were passed, the flaming ranges were left behind, the upper
altitudes became grim and mysterious. I crossed a lake on the ice, and