MOUN'rAm-UARRIEKS 



221 



most like a bed of clay. But the little stream 

 running away from its lowest part is pure ; and 

 it dashes through the canyon, tumbles into little 

 pools, and slips over shelving precipices like a 

 thing of life. Could the canyon have been cut 

 out of the solid rock by that little stream ? Who 

 knows ! Besides, the stream is not always so 

 small. The descent is steep, and bowlders car- 

 ried down by great floods cut faster than water. 

 It is dangerous travelling this crossing of 

 snow-banks in June. You never know how 

 soft they may be nor how deep they may drop 

 you. Better head the snow-bank no matter how 

 much hard brush and harder stones there may 

 be to fight against. The pines are above you 

 and they are beginning to appear near you. Be- 

 side you is a solitary shaft of dead timber, its 

 branches wrenched from it long ago and its 

 trunk left standing against the winds. And on 

 the ground about you there are fallen trunks, 

 crumbled almost to dust, and near them young 

 pines springing up to take the place of the fallen. 

 Manzanita and buckthorn and lilac are here, 

 too ; but the chaparral is not so dense as lower 

 down. You pass through it easily and press on 

 upward, still upward, in the cool mountain-air, 

 until you are above the barranca of snow and un- 



The wear of 

 water. 



The pines. 



