esolution.

It was one of the most laborious days of all our hard journey. Hour
after hour we climbed steadily up beside the roaring gray-white
little stream, up toward the far-shining snowfields, which blazed
back the sun like mirrors. The trees grew smaller, the river bed
seemed to approach us until we slumped along in the running water. At
last we burst out into the light above timber line. Around us
porcupines galloped, and whistling marmots signalled with shrill
vehemence. We were weak with fatigue and wet with icy water to the
knees, but we pushed on doggedly until we came to a little mound of
short, delicious green grass from which the snow had melted. On this
we stopped to let the horses graze. The view was magnificent, and
something wild and splendid came on the wind over the snowy peaks and
smooth grassy mounds.

We were now in the region of great snowfields, under which roared
swift streams from still higher altitudes. There were thousands of
marmots, which seemed to utter the most intense astonishment at the
inexplicable coming of these strange creatures. The snow in the
gullies had a curious bloody line which I could not account for. A
little bird high up here uttered a sweet little whistle, so sad, so
full of pleading, it almost brought tears to my eyes. In form it
resembled a horned lark, but was smaller and kept very close to the
ground.

We reached the summit at sunset, there to find only other mountains
and other enormous gulches leading downward into far blue canyons. It
was the wildest land I have ever seen. A country unmapped,
unsurveyed, and unprospected. A region which had known only an
occasional Indian hunter or trapper with his load of furs on his way
down to the river and his canoe. Desolate, without life, green and
white and flashing illimitably, the gray old peaks aligned themselves
rank on rank until lost in the mists of still wilder regions.

From this high point we could see our friends, the Manchester boys,
on the north slope two or three miles below us at timber line. Weak
in the knees, cold and wet and hungry as we were, we determined to
push down the trail over the snowfields, down to grass and water. Not
much more than forty minutes later we came out upon a comparatively
level spot of earth where grass was fairly good, and where the
wind-twisted stunted pines grew in clumps large enough to furnish
wood for our fires and a pole for our tent. The land was meshed with
roaring rill