114 SUMMER 



were the peaks, lonely, solitary, mighty, terrible ! 

 Such bleakness and desolation ! 



But here, they told me, they had shot the cony. 

 I could not believe it. Why should any animal live 

 away up here on the roof of the world? For several 

 feet each side of the steep, piled-up rock grew spears 

 of thin, wiry grass about six inches high, and a few 

 stunted flowers, pussy's-paws, alpine phlox, and 

 beardtongue, all of them flat to the sand, and 

 farther down the sides of the ravine were low, twisted 

 pines, mere prostrate mats of trees that had crept 

 in narrow ascending tongues, up and up, until they 

 could hang on no longer to the bare alpine "slopes. 

 But here above the stunted pines, here in the slide 

 rock, where only mosses and a few flat plants could 

 live, plants that blossom in the snow, dwell the 

 conies. 



I sat down on the edge of the slide, feeling that I 

 had had my labor for my pains. We had been climb- 

 ing these peaks in the hope of seeing one of the last 

 small bands of mountain sheep that made these fast- 

 nesses their home. But, much as I wished to see a wild 

 mountain sheep among the crags, I wished more to 

 see the little cony among the rocks. " As for the 

 stork/' says the Bible, " the fir trees are her house. 

 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats ; and 

 the rocks for the conies." I had always wondered 

 about those conies what they looked like and how 

 they lived among the rocks. 



