THE STREETS OF THE MOUNTAINS 



the canon floor. Pine woods, the short- 

 leafed Balfour and Murryana of the high 

 Sierras, are sombre, rooted in the litter of 

 a thousand years, hushed, and corrective 

 to the spirit. The trail passes insensibly 

 into them from the black pines and a thin 

 belt of firs. You look back as you rise, 

 and strain for glimpses of the tawny val- 

 ley, blue glints of the Bitter Lake, and 

 tender cloud films on the farther ranges. 

 For such pictures the pine branches make 

 a noble frame. Presently they close in 

 wholly; they draw mysteriously near, cov- 

 ering your tracks, giving up the trail indif- 

 ferently, or with a secret grudge. You get 

 a kind of impatience with their locked 

 ranks, until you come out lastly on some 

 high, windy dome and see what they are 

 about. They troop thickly up the open 

 ways, river banks, and brook borders ; up 

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