Bife on i$t Qlocfti** 



One winter I walked on snowshoes on the 

 upper slopes of the " snowy " range of the Rock- 

 ies, from the Wyoming line on the north to near 

 the New Mexico line on the south. This was a 

 long walk, and it was full of amusement and ad- 

 venture. I walked most of the way on the crest 

 of the continent. The broken nature of the sur- 

 face gave me ups and downs. Sometimes I would 

 descend to the level of seven thousand feet, and 

 occasionally I climbed some peak that was four- 

 teen thousand feet above the tides. 



I had not been out many days on this trip 

 when I was caught in a storm on the heights 

 above tree-line. I at once started downward for 

 the woods. The way among the crags and preci- 

 pices was slippery; the wind threatened every 

 moment to hurl me over a cliff ; the wind-blown 

 snow filled the air so that I could see only a few 

 feet, and at times not at all. But it was too cold 

 to stop. For two hours I fought my way down- 

 ward through the storm, and so dark was it dur- 

 ing the last half-hour that I literally felt my way 

 with my staff. Once in the woods, I took off a 

 snowshoe, dug a large hole in the snow down to 



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