A NIGHT ON SHASTA'S SUMMIT 



treat, and held me to my work. No inexperi- 

 enced person was depending on me, and I told 

 Jerome that we two mountaineers should be 

 able to make our way down through any storm 

 likely to fall. 



Presently thin, fibrous films of cloud began 

 to blow directly over the summit from north 

 to south, drawn out in long fairy webs like 

 carded wool, forming and dissolving as if by 

 magic. The wind twisted them into ringlets 

 and whirled them in a succession of graceful 

 convolutions like the outside sprays of Yosem- 

 ite Falls in flood-time; then, saiUng out into 

 the thin azure over the precipitous brink of the 

 ridge they were drifted together like wreaths 

 of foam on a river. These higher and finer 

 cloud fabrics were evidently produced by the 

 chilling of the air from its own expansion caused 

 by the upward deflection of the wind against 

 the slopes of the mountain. They steadily 

 increased on the north rim of the cone, form- 

 ing at length a thick, opaque, ill-defined em- 

 bankment from the icy meshes of which snow- 

 flowers began to fall, alternating with hail. The 

 sky speedily darkened, and just as I had com- 

 pleted my last observation and boxed my 

 instruments ready for the descent, the storm 

 began in serious earnest. At first the cliffs 

 were beaten with hail, every stone of which, 

 71 



