62 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



green ocean of the prairie. There was no sound but 

 the rushing of the summit wind and the faint roar of 

 water falling three thousand feet. 



Presently we suggested to the artist that he make a 

 sketch, but he sadly shook his head. 



"It can't be done!" he answered. 



There are times when Man is humble. 



A great deal has been written by mountaineers about 

 the joys of climbing. The joys of climbing are often a 

 good deal like those of heavy dumb-bell exercises. In 

 Glacier Park you want to sing the joys of coming back 

 to camp in the afternoon and loafing on a bed of balsam 

 boughs, with your tent flap open wide to the view of 

 lupines and violets in the meadow and distant, snow- 

 capped peaks beyond. You want to sing the joys of 

 fragrant food and steaming tea, of twilight slowly 

 gathering as though so fair a day were reluctant to de- 

 part. To ascend a peak, to see the tumbled world at its 

 wildest; to sit again in camp, tired and warmed with 

 food, to hear with one ear the camp cook telling bear 

 stories, with the other the bird-like calls of the ground 

 squirrels; to smell the resinous wood smoke and the 

 balsams, to catch now and then the tinkle of little ice- 

 water brooks from the snowfields, to watch the sunset 

 blush on Heaven's Peak and the stars come slowly out 

 above the battlements of the Divide well, that is, I fear, 

 to spoil you for any other life. The little ice- water 

 brooks sing a siren song in the uplands starred with 



