nd set
off southward, where, after six miles, I should come to the trail that
led to my starting-place on the east side of the range. After I had
made about three miles, the cold clouds closed in, and everything was
fogged. A chilly half-hour's wait and the clouds broke up. I had lost
my ten-foot staff in the snow-slide, and feeling for precipices
without it would probably bring me out upon another snow-cornice, so
I took no chances.

I was twelve thousand five hundred feet above sea-level when the
clouds broke up, and from this great height I looked down upon what
seemed to be the margin of the polar world. It was intensely cold, but
the sun shone with dazzling glare, and the wilderness of snowy peaks
came out like a grand and jagged ice-field in the far south. Halos
and peculiarly luminous balls floated through the color-tinged and
electrical air. The horizon had a touch of cobalt blue, and on the
dome above, white flushes appeared and disappeared like faint auroras.
After five hours on these silent but imposing heights I struck my
first day's trail, and began a wild and merry coast down among the
rocks and trees to my starting-place.

I hope to have more winter excursions, but perhaps I have had my
share. At the bare thought of those winter experiences I am again
on an unsheltered peak struggling in a storm; or I am in a calm and
splendid forest upon whose snowy, peaceful aisles fall the purple
shadows of crags and pines.

The Story of a Thousand-Year Pine

The peculiar charm and fascination that trees exert over many people
I had always felt from childhood, but it was that great nature-lover,
John Muir, who first showed me how and where to learn their language.
Few trees, however, ever held for me such an attraction as did a
gigantic and venerable yellow pine which I discovered one autumn day
several years ago while exploring the southern Rockies. It grew within
sight of the Cliff-Dwellers' Mesa Verde, which stands at the corner
of four States, and as I came upon it one evening just as the sun
was setting over that mysterious tableland, its character and heroic
proportions made an impression upon me that I shall never forget, and
which familiar acquaintance only served to deepen while it yet lived
and before the axeman came. Many a time I returned to build my
camp-fire by it and have a day or a night in its solitary and noble
company. I learned afterwards that it had been given the name "Old
Pine," and