224 



THE DESERT 



The moun- 

 tain-air. 



The dwarf 

 pine. 



The 

 summit. 



for the soughing of the wind through the pine 

 needles and the jangle of the jays ! And how 

 thin and clear the mountain-air ! How white the 

 sunlight falling upon the moss-covered rocks ! It 

 must be that we have risen out of the dust- 

 laden atmosphere of the desert. And out of 

 its heat too. The air feels as though blown to 

 us from snow-banks, and indeed, they are in the 

 gullies lying on either side of us. For now we 

 are coming close to the peak. The bushes have 

 been dwindling away for some time past, and 

 the pines have been growing thinner in body, 

 fewer in number, smaller in size. A dwarf pine 

 begins to show itself a scraggly tempest-fight- 

 ing tree, designed by Nature to grow among the 

 bowlders of the higher peaks and to be the first 

 to stop the slides of snow. The hardy grasses 

 fight beside it, and with them is the little snow- 

 bird, fighting for life too. 



Upward, still upward, until great spaces be- 

 gin to show through the trees and the ground 

 flattens and becomes a floor of rock. In the 

 barrancas on the north side the snow still lies in 

 banks, but on the south side, where the sun falls 

 all day, the ground is bare. You are now above 

 the timber line. Nothing shows but wrecked 

 and shattered strata of rock with patches of 



