80 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS, 



is here a rushing stream, hurrying along over 

 black rocks, making here a cascade and there a 

 sand-bar, and playing hide-and-seek with the 

 railroad as it dodges first to the right side of the 

 track and then to the left. 



Beside the water grow the willows, and the 

 pink azalias, and the sweet syringas. On every 

 little island and all along the banks are the broad- 

 leaved saxifrages, giving the river a tropical as- 

 pect. In the still pools we sometimes think we 

 see a big speckled trout. 



On and on we go, our puffing engine turning 

 this way and that, to avoid a hill on one side and 

 to cross a bridge on the other. As we look ahead 

 as far as possible, we catch a glimpse of some- 

 thing wonderfully white and wonderfully large, 

 like a great cloud in the sky. 



Was it a cloud, we wonder; for it could not 

 have been — for surely we are not near Shasta 

 yet. But it was Shasta, all the same; and as we go 

 on, we see it again, and know that we are really 

 nearing that magnificent old snowy volcano. 



At Mossbrae Falls the water from its melting 

 snows are fairly bursting out of the fern-clad 

 rocks; while from the Soda Springs we take a 

 draught of a delicious liquid fresh from nature's 

 laboratory. 



