THE STREETS OF THE MOUNTAINS 



cessant ; the air is odorous and hot. The 

 roar of the stream fills up the morning 

 and evening intervals, and at night the 

 deer feed in the buckthorn thickets. It 

 is worth watching the year round in the 

 purlieus of the long-leafed pines. One 

 month or another you get sight or trail of 

 most roving mountain dwellers as they fol- 

 low the limit of forbidding snows, and more 

 bloom than you can properly appreciate. 



Whatever goes up or comes down the 

 streets of the mountains, water has the 

 right of way; it takes the lowest ground 

 and the shortest passage. Where the 

 rifts are narrow, and some of the Sierra 

 canons are not a stone's throw from wall 

 to wall, the best trail for foot or horse 

 winds considerably above the watercourses ; 

 but in a country of cone-bearers there is 

 usually a good strip of swardy sod along 

 189 



