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ALKALIZING the importance of traveling as 

 Vi,*' lightly as possible during my hasty trip 

 through the Uncompahgre Mountains, I al- 

 lowed myself to believe that the golden days 

 would continue. Accordingly I set off with no 

 bedding, with but little food, and without even 

 snowshoes. A few miles up the trail, above Lake 

 City, I met a prospector coming down and out 

 of these mountains for the winter. "Yes," he 

 said, "the first snow usually is a heavy one, and 

 I am going out now for fear of being snowed-in 

 for the winter." My imagination at once pict- 

 ured the grand mountains deeply, splendidly 

 covered with snow, myself by a camp-fire in a 

 solemn primeval forest without food or bedding, 

 a camp-bird on a near-by limb sympathizing 

 with me in low, confiding tones, the snow waist- 

 deep and mountains-wide. Then I dismissed 

 the imaginary picture of winter and joyfully 

 climbed the grand old mountains amid the low 



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