IN SIGHT OF SHASTA 



T THE head of the great Sacramento Valley 

 rises the snow cone of Mount Shasta, one of 

 the commanding peaks of the Sierra Range. 

 Encamped for a summer upon the bank beside 

 the river tumbling and swirling down the rocks 

 on its way toward the plain, I watched the 

 birds. Great yellow pine trees stood round about, and through 

 a vista up the river loomed the sublime peak. 



The forest screen crowded down to the edge of the on- 

 flowing river. Of conifers there were the spruce trees with 

 drooping boughs, short fragrant needles and small cones, cedars 

 with ruddy stringy bark and flattened plume-like masses of 

 yellowish-green verdure, and venerable old yellow pines 

 with bark in big scale-like plates of a tawny yellowish hue, 

 and tufts of long needles, on boughs outstretched from the tall 

 symmetrical trunks. Crowding amidst these were maples and 

 black oaks, with alders by the water's edge, and near by in 

 the arroyo, willows, their slender leaves showing silver to the 

 breeze. Upon the very margin of the river, dabbling their 

 giant leaves in the restless water, grew the saxifrage, covering 

 the rocky banks with their big scalloped disks. Above the 

 line of the saxifrage the rocks were draped in dainty trailers of 

 blackberry and wild grape, while the clematis changed its 



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