14000 MILES 



to respond to a few bugle notes. At Profile Lake we left 

 the carriage again, to see how the "Old Man" looked 

 when joined to earth. He hung in mid-air when we saw 

 him last — enveloped in mist. We were too impatient to 

 explore the new Flume to spare half an hour for the Pool, 

 which was still fresh in our minds; and leaving Charlie 

 to rest we started at once, with eyes opened wide to catch 

 the first change in the famed spot. For some distance all 

 was as we remembered it ; but the scene of devastation 

 was not far off, and we were soon in the midst of it. We 

 had heard it said, "The Flume is spoiled," and again, "It 

 is more wonderful than ever." Both are true in a 

 measure ; before it suggested a miracle, and now it 

 looked as if there had been a "big freshet." Huge, pros- 

 trate trees were lodged along the side of the gorge high 

 above our heads, and the mighty torrent had forced its 

 way, first one side, then the other, sweeping everything 

 in its course, and leaving marks of its power. Nothing 

 looked natural until we got to the narrow gorge where 

 the boulder once hung, as Starr King said, "Held by a 

 grasp out of which it will not slip for centuries," and now 

 it has rolled far down stream like a pebble, and is lost in 

 a crowd of companion boulders. The place where it hung 

 is marked by the driftwood which caught around it and 

 still clings to the ledges. A long way below we saw a 

 board marked "Boulder" placed against an innocent- 

 looking rock, which everybody was gazing at with won- 

 der and admiration, but we also noticed a mischievous 

 "A" above the inscription, which gave it its probable 

 rank. A workman told us he thought he had identified 

 the real boulder farther down amidst the debris ; but it 



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