THE ROCKS FOR THE CONIES 179 



of ravens ; and down, down, immeasurably far 

 down beneath the ravens, glistened the small 

 winding waters of the Imnaha. But it was the 

 peaks, the scarped, sheer-shouldered peaks, stark, 

 black, desolate, standing so close about me, that 

 smote me with awe and a kind of lonely terror. I 

 could stay while the sun was high. How could 

 anything alive stay longer — through a night — 

 through a long winter of nights in this slide on 

 the summit? 



For several feet each side of the broken rock 

 grew spears of wiry grass about six inches high, 

 together with a few stunted flowers, — pussy's- 

 paws, alpine phlox, beard-tongue, saxifrage, and 

 a low single daisy. Farther down the sides of the 

 ravine crept low, twisted pines — mere mats of 

 trees, prostrate, distorted forms that had clam- 

 bered and clung in narrow, ascending tongues up 

 and up until they could get no higher hold on 

 the blasted slopes. 



And here above the reach of these grim, per- 

 sistent pines, here in the slide rock where only a 

 few stunted growths and arctic-alpine flowers come 

 into brief bloom through the snow, they had told 

 me lived the cony. 



