204 ON THE FEONTIEE. 



dwarfed pines in the hollows and depressions in the ground ; 

 but though they were practically a redeeming feature in the 

 scene, as furnishing fuel, they gave neither relief nor variety 

 to the landscape, being so laden with snow as to be scarcely 

 distinguishable. 



" A wide desolate expanse of whitest snow, unbroken by a 

 single track of beast or bird, unrelieved by one bare spot of 

 rock or ground, cold, monotonous, and uniform, lay like a 

 gigantic winding-sheet spread ready to receive us. 



"Soon the snow became so loose and deep that the 

 animals, sinking up to their bellies, could proceed no 

 farther, and it was with difficulty even we could do so. 

 There was but one course to pursue. Leaving the animals 

 with Laughfy to hold and prevent them lying down, I broke 

 the way in front, trampling and stamping the snow until I 

 made a narrow path firm enough to support them. Along 

 this they were led ; then he, taking his turn, worked a short 

 road, while I held the stock and rested. This was not only 

 a very fatiguing but a very slow way of progressing ; and it 

 was late in the afternoon before we got to the gap opposite 

 the one through which we had arrived on the summit valley. 

 It was a narrow V-shaped opening ; its sides, being two peaks 

 of the rim of the valley, rising several hundred feet above 

 its level. Looking through this opening an opening like a 

 prodigious hind-sight of a rifle a magnificent panorama 

 presented itself. 



" The San Luis Valley lay revealed to our gaze. A huge 

 oval, nearly twenty miles in width by more than double that 

 distance in length, entirely surrounded by immense moun- 

 tains terminating in a multitude of fantastic peaks. 



