216 Life in the Open 



Over the divide is heard the laughing, yelping howl of 

 the coyote and perhaps the mournful cry of the mount- 

 ain lion. The air is cool and like velvet on the cheek, 

 and has a remarkable carrying quality ; the falling 

 branches, the rolling down of mimic avalanches or slides 

 of rock or gravel are distinctly heard, though far away, 

 and every sound has its peculiar individuality. 



I have stood on the high peaks at night and watched 

 the fog come stealing in from the sea, until it spread out 

 an opaline vestment, filling all the valleys with seas of 

 silver, through which the tops of hills and lesser mount- 

 ains protruded like islands ; a sea of marvellous lights 

 and shades. In early morning it is vermilion or violet 

 or silver, a splendid spectacle, as though the very air had 

 frozen and filled the lowlands with a rolling, billowy sea 

 of ice that stretched away to the horizon and wound its 

 way around the limitless world. At other times the full 

 moon rises clear and beautiful, flooding the valleys with 

 silvery light, while the darkness of the cafions is so in- 

 tensified that they can be traced for miles. The valley 

 becomes a world of shadows, and weird shapes form 

 and re-form, advance and retreat, as the moon rises and 

 floods the land with light. 



The mountains are not always peaceful. At times 

 they are rent by fierce northers, when pandemonium 

 seems to have broken loose, and the scene is made more 

 terrible by the fact that it is blowing in a cloudless sky. 

 Such a night was clear and brilliant; the stars, due per- 

 haps to the electrical condition of the atmosphere, took 



