MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 



219 



turies. It is an old talus of one of the spurs. 

 You wind about it diagonally until different 

 ground is reached, and then you are once more 

 upon a ridge higher by a spur than before. 



Again the scene changes. An open park- 

 like country appears covered with tall grass, 

 the sunlight flickers on the shiny leaves of live- 

 oaks, and dotted here and there are tall yuccas 

 in bloom the last of the desert growths to 

 vanish from the scene. Flowers strange to the 

 desert are growing in the grass clumps of yel- 

 low violets, little fields of pink alfileria, purple 

 lilies, purple nightshades, red paint-brushes, 

 and flaming fire-rods. And there are birds in the 

 trees that know the desert only as they fly blue 

 birds with red breasts as in New England, blue- 

 jays with their chatter as in Minnesota, blue- 

 backed woodpeckers with their tapping on dead 

 limbs as in Pennsylvania. And here was once 

 the stamping-ground of the mule-deer. Here 

 in the old days under the shade of the live-oak 

 he would drowse away the heat of the day and 

 at night perhaps step down to the desert. He 

 was safe then in the open country, but to-day 

 he knows danger and skulks in the depths of 

 the chaparral, from which a hound can scarcely 

 drive him. 



Among the 

 live-oaks. 



Birds and 

 deer. 



