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179 



ing the glorious color of the lake. At 

 its foot, a perfect camp site invites us, 

 hut we rest only to appreciate past all 

 forgetting-, the wondrous beauty of the 

 lake. On other days we've tarried here, 

 and spread our canvas underneath the 

 trees. That clear, green lake might 

 tell many a tale of our sojourn by its 

 waters; of how we rose at daybreak 

 that we might watch the graceful ducks 

 in swimming contests cross its glassy 

 surface ; of how we plunged into its 

 icy, unfathomed depths that we mighi 

 meet the day refreshed ; of how we 

 lured the warey trout that we might 

 do honor to man's deceit and break- 

 fast; of how we cried in jodels to the 

 mountains that we might offer up 

 the gladness of our youthful hearts; of 

 how we listened to the crashing thun- 

 der and thrust our faces out into the 

 stinging snow that we might rejoice 

 in happy comrades and in our forest 

 home; and of how we built our fires 

 at twilight and sang our hymns to the 

 eventide, that we might remember with 

 tenderness our blessings and our 

 absent ones. And today we shall do 

 well, to listen to its legend and to its 

 promise ; for, in the granite canyons 

 where dwell a restless humanity, it will 

 call again from out the vastness with 

 an insistence that knows no denial. 



But we must travel fast or we shall 

 not see the Yoho valley before night- 

 fall. Our trail leads to the head of the 

 lake over a fan-shaped moraine, 

 through which a hundred rivers run 

 into the lake, and then up a zig-zag- 

 mountain side to a great cobble-stone 

 plateau sloping ever upward. The go- 

 ing is far from good and with heavy 

 riick-sacks on our backs, — for we ad- 

 jure all pack trains and carry three 

 days' provisions and our blankets — we 

 have mercy in our hearts for all beasts 

 of burden. The sloping plateau abrupt- 

 ly joins a heavy growth of timber and 

 we climb upward in its grateful shade 

 along the shoulder of Mount Wapta. 

 At last we strike the Yoho Pass, and 

 Summit Lake is there to greet us. We 

 had thought Emerald Lake was cold 

 but our boiling blood is congealed as 

 we bathe face and arms in waters born 

 in sub-terranean ice caves. Leaving 



TAKAKKAW FALLS. 

 From the high trail. 



