58 SUMMER 



o r 



beginning to reach us as flocks of the birds passed \ 

 around and over our heads. 



The fog was lifting. The thick, wet drift that had ) 

 threatened our little launch on Tillamook Bar stood ; 

 clear of the shouldering sea to the westward, and in ^ 

 c. , -r over the shore, like an upper sea, hung at the fir-girt \ 

 ^ $ middles of the mountains, as level and as gray as | 



^ the sea below. There was no breeze. The long, smooth 

 ^ & swell of the Pacific swung under us and in, until it* 



it O 7 \ 



^ ," <F whitened at the base of the three rocks that rose out ; 



i of the sea in our course, and that now began to^ 

 ^- f take on form in the foggy distance. Gulls were fly-x 

 (*"'? ing over us, lines of black cormorants and crowds * 

 V / of murres were winging past, but we were still too*; 

 \ ^ far away from the looming rocks to see that the gray \ 



! }> of their walls was the gray of uncounted colonies of < 

 | I* nesting birds, colonies that covered their craggy steeps 

 !;* i as, on shore, the green firs clothed the slopes of the 

 ; -, / Coast Range Mountains up to the hanging fog. 

 \ ' As we ran on nearer, the sound of the surf about 

 \ N ' the rocks became audible, the birds in the air grew 

 ^ ^ more numerous, their cries now faintly mingling with 

 i V the sound of the sea. A hole in the side of the middle 

 .y V Rock, a mere fleck of foam it seemed at first, widened 



f rapidly into an arching tunnel through which our 

 V ' > boat might run; the swell of the sea began to break 

 ^f^ over half-sunken ledges; and soon upon us fell the 

 <K V ; damp shadows of the three great rocks, for now 

 \ ) we were looking far up at their sides, where we could 



