the leaf-mould, its crushed leaves redolent of
ginger; masses of yellow violets, twinflowers, ox-eye daisies, and
sweet-in-death, which is sold on the streets in the West as we sell
sweet lavender. There were buttercups, purple asters, bluebells,
goat's-beard, columbines, Mariposa lilies, bird's-bill, trillium,
devil's-club, wild white heliotrope, brick-leaved spirea, wintergreen,
everlasting.

And there are still others, where Buddy collided with the yellow-jacket,
that I find I cannot read at all.

Something lifted for me that day as Buddy and I led off down that fat,
green valley, with the pass farther and farther behind--a weight off my
spirit, a deadly fear of accident, not to myself but to the Family,
which had obsessed me for the last few days. But now I could twist in
my saddle and see them all, ruddy and sound and happy, whistling as they
rode. And I knew that it was all right. It had been good for them and
good for me. It is always good to do a difficult thing. And no one has
ever fought a mountain and won who is not the better for it. The
mountains are not for the weak or the craven, or the feeble of mind or
body.

We went on, to the distant tinkle of the bell on the lead-horse of the
pack-train.

It was that day that "Silent Lawrie" spoke I remember, because he had
said so little before, and because what he said was so well worth
remembering.

"Why can't all this sort of thing be put into music?" he asked. "It _is_
music. Think of it, the drama of it all!"

Then he went on, and this is what "Silent Lawrie" wants to have written.
I pass it on to the world, and surely it can be done. It starts at dawn,
with the dew, and the whistling of the packers as they go after the
horses. Then come the bells of the horses as they come in, the smoke of
the camp-fire, the first sunlight on the mountains, the saddling and
packing. And all the time the packers are whistling.

Then the pack starts out on the trail, the bells of the leaders
jingling, the rattle and crunch of buckles and saddle-leather, the click
of the horses' feet against the rocks, the swish as they ford a singing
stream. The wind is in the trees and birds are chirping. Then comes the
long, hard day, the forest, the first sight of snow-covered peaks, the
final effort, and camp.

After that, there is the thrush's evening song, the afterglow, the
camp-fire, and the stars. And over all is the quiet of the night, and
the faint bells of grazing horses,