HARRIET— LITTLE MOUNTAIN CLIMBER 235 



small haycocks of plants and stores them among 

 the boulders for his winter food. 



"Why doesn't he go down the mountain and live 

 by the brook where there is more hay?" was an- 

 other question that I could not answer. 



About a thousand feet below the top of the Peak 

 we turned aside for a drink from a tiny spring, the 

 last water on the way up. Here we lingered several 

 minutes. Harriet gathered a double handful of 

 snow and carried it to the spring that she might 

 send more water down the Mississippi to New 

 Orleans. Then of the wet snow she made a dam 

 on the rocks where the water flowed from the 

 spring. 



Leaving this place we did steep rock climbing 

 over a few hundred feet to the Narrows. In 

 places Harriet walked in front of me; but most of 

 the time she was behind, and always close. By 

 listening carefully I could tell that all was well with 

 her without looking back. At no time were we 

 roped together. In a few places I helped her, but 

 most of the time she walked alone. 



A few snow-drifts and ice-piles remain on the 

 head and shoulders of the Peak all summer. The 

 upper two thousand feet is almost solid rock; there 

 are cracks, ledges, and shattered places, with a pin- 

 nacle and shattered rock around its base. Here 

 and there was a beauty spot — a tiny bed of soil 

 covered with grass and flowers in the midst of 

 rocky barrenness. 



