bout
10.30 several heavy clouds rose from behind Long's Peak, moving toward
the northwest, rising higher into the sky as they advanced.

[Illustration: ON THE HEIGHTS]

The wind, at first in fitful dashes from the southeast, began to come
more steadily and swiftly after eleven o'clock, and was so warm that
the snow softened to a sloppy state. The air carried a tinge of haze,
and conditions were oppressive. It was labor to breathe. Never, except
one deadly hot July day in New York City, have I felt so overcome with
heat and choking air. Perspiration simply streamed from me. These
oppressive conditions continued for two hours,--until about one
o'clock. While they lasted, my eyes pained, ached, and twitched. There
was no glare, but only by keeping my eyes closed could I stand the
half-burning pain. Finally I came to some crags and lay down for a
time in the shade. I was up eleven thousand five hundred feet and the
time was 12.20. As I lay on the snow gazing upward, I became aware
that there were several flotillas of clouds of from seven to twenty
each, and these were moving toward every point of the compass. Each
seemed on a different stratum of air, and each moved through space a
considerable distance above or below the others. The clouds moving
eastward were the highest. Most of the lower clouds were those moving
westward. The haze and sunlight gave color to every cloud, and this
color varied from smoky red to orange.

At two o'clock the haze came in from the east almost as dense as a
fog-bank, crossed the ridge before me, and spread out as dark and
foreboding as the smoke of Vesuvius. Behind me the haze rolled upward
when it struck the ridge, and I had clear glimpses whenever I looked
to the southwest. This heavy, muddy haze prevailed for a little more
than half an hour, and as it cleared, the clouds began to disappear,
but a gauzy haze still continued in the air. The feeling in the air
was not agreeable, and for the first time in my life I felt alarmed
by the shifting, rioting clouds and the weird haze.

I arrived at timber-line south of Poudre Lakes about 4.30 P. M., and
for more than half an hour the sky, except in the east over the
foothills, was clear, and the sunlight struck a glare from the snow.
With the cleared air there came to me an easier feeling. The
oppressiveness ceased. I descended a short distance into the woods
and relaxed on a fallen tree that lay above the snow.

I had been there but a little w