A NIGHT ON SHASTA'S SUMMIT 



admonished that I had come on a dangerous 

 quest. The time was far too late, the snow was 

 too loose and deep to climb, and I should be 

 lost in drifts and shdes. When I hinted that 

 new snow was beautiful and storms not so bad 

 as they were called, my advisers shook their 

 heads in token of superior knowledge and de- 

 clared the ascent of ''Shasta Butte" through 

 loose snow impossible. Nevertheless, before 

 noon of the second of November I was in the 

 frosty azure of the utmost summit. 



When I arrived at Sisson's everything was 

 quiet. The last of the summer visitors had 

 flitted long before, and the deer and bears also 

 were beginning to seek their winter homes. My 

 barometer and the sighing winds and filmy, 

 half-transparent clouds that dimmed the sun- 

 shine gave notice of the approach of another 

 storm, and I was in haste to be off and get 

 myself estabhshed somewhere in the midst of 

 it, whether the summit was to be attained or 

 not. Sisson, who is a mountaineer, speedily 

 fitted me out for storm or calm as only a 

 mountaineer could, with warm blankets and a 

 week's provisions so generous in quantity and 

 kind that they easily might have been made to 

 last a month in case of my being closely snow- 

 bound. Well I knew the weariness of snow- 

 climbing, and the frosts, and the dangers of 



59 



