52 Life in the Open 



mountains stand out with marvellous distinctness ; the 

 days are shorter, there is a crispness to the air, and the 

 mountains what tints of blue, what ineffable shades, 

 suggestions, and tones of this splendid colour! The 

 main range is of turquoise, of old India mines ; the sec- 

 ond, lapis lazuli ; the third is the tone I have seen in 

 labradorite ; then the spur farther still is azure ; but here 

 your blues give out and fail, as have the greens long 

 ago. Suddenly one day there comes from somewhere 

 over your head or high in air wild and vociferous 

 sounds, and leaping out into the open every vagrant 

 fog fleck seems to have given tongue, and a great, white 

 aerial maelstrom is forming before your eyes. Around 

 it whirls, rising upward ; now dazzling the eye with 

 glittering silver, as though some prodigal hand had 

 tossed newly minted dollars into the air, then disap- 

 pearing to come again ; flashing, scintillating against 

 the blue of the heavens. Up it rises ; then a single 

 goose, almost reaching the empyrean, turns, followed by 

 the flock, which lengthens out into a long angle and 

 sails, slides down-hill along the face of the Sierras a 

 token by which you know that ducks, geese, and cranes 

 are going south and that winter and the shooting season 

 has arrived. No more beautiful sight than this can be 

 seen in Southern California when these vast flocks pass 

 up and down, silhouetted against the chaparral of the 

 mountain slopes. 



If you live in the mountains this call comes every few 

 hours. Near my camp, on a spur of the Sierras, in 



