TIME AND CHANGE 



crazy by it, as their sunken eyes and poor condition 

 plainly showed. 



The trail became rougher and steeper as we as- 

 cended, and the grass and trees gave place to low, 

 scrubby bushes. We were half an hour or more in 

 the cloud-belt, where the singing skylarks did not 

 follow us. The clouds proved to be as loose of tex- 

 ture and as innocent as any summer fog that loiters 

 in our valleys; but it was good to emerge into the 

 sunshine again, and see the jagged line of the top 

 sensibly nearer, and the canopy of clouds unroll 

 itself beneath us. Far ahead of us and near the 

 summit we saw a band of wild goats — twenty-two, 

 I counted — leisurely grazing along, and now and 

 then casting glances down upon us. They were 

 domestic animals gone wild, and still retained their 

 bizarre colors of white and black. One big black 

 leader with a long beard looked down at us and 

 shook his head threateningly. We reached the sum- 

 mit before the sun reached the horizon, and our eyes 

 looked forth upon a strange world, indeed. On 

 one hand the vast sea of cloud, into which the sun 

 was about to drop, rolled away from the mountain 

 below us, with its white surface and the irregular 

 masses rising up from it, suggesting a sea of float- 

 ing ice. Through rifts in it we caught occasional 

 glimpses of the Pacific — blue, vague, mystical gulfs 

 that seemed filled with something less substantial 

 than water. On the other hand was the vast crater 



138 



