The High Places 85 



The point on which the quartette stood, an upstanding spur 

 of rock whose vertically splintered sides dropped sheer a hundred 

 feet or more to the point of emergence from a great slide that 

 quickly lost itself in obscure deeps of fir and pine, was seamed 

 and torn, with great boulders and lesser fragments of rock hurled 

 about in a cyclopean disorder. There were no heights above 

 from which they could have come down. The slow action of 

 seeping water, and rock splitting frost succeeding, even through 

 long-drawn hundreds of centuries, might not account for but 

 an infinitesimal part of the palaeolithic upheaval. With a slight 

 mental shock one came to a rather awed recognition of the fact that 

 the party looked upon the remains of the initial battle of forces 

 — the debris from the very beginning of the world. There is no 

 word. Thought can only vaguely grope. One can but look at the 

 rocks everlasting, statant to eternity from the primal disorder — 

 noting on their faces the golden flame of lichen that may have 

 caught and sent back the evening glows of a thousand centuries. 



With field glasses the sides of the mountain across the 

 canyon were raked slowly and systematically, every craggy ledge, 

 every sun-warmed nook being scanned for bighorn — the moun- 

 tain sheep of the Rockies. Nothing was seen to move, nor could 

 with any certainty be anything picked out among piles of scat- 

 tered rock, or in herbaged corners that might be reckoned the 

 bodies of sheep couchant. For, as Jay explained: "The mountain 

 sheep matches that pile of rock in color, and unless he stands 

 clear against the sky, or a patch of herbage, or moves, you might 

 take your glasses right over him, and not know he was there. 

 Yes, sir, I reckon he is one of the hardest animals to find there 

 is going, and the greatest of trophies if you happen to get him." 



Evening drawing in, came the descent and return to camp. 

 The prime descent was made almost at the base of Baldy and 

 thence down the valley, following the creek. A cloudy gray 

 sundown and a slight halo around the moon three quarters full 

 promised rain for the morrow. 



As a side-light on the sometimes necessary and economical 

 discipline of camp life far from a base of supplies, it may be 

 remarked that the customary coronas handed out by William 

 after dinner were omitted this evening. "We get 'em only 

 every other evening now," said he. 



