198 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



The day wore on as I mused. The sun passed 

 the meridian line, and soon the shadows of the pines 

 and hills began to stretch their cone-like forma- 

 tions out toward the east. As I gazed upon the 

 landscape, with a hundred mountains within sweep 

 of my eye, at whose feet lake after lake lay in peace- 

 ful repose, and between which numberless streams 

 flowed, gleaming amid the forests of pine and fir 

 as threads of silver woven into a robe of Lincoln- 

 green, I thought of the words of Isaiah : " I will 

 open rivers in high places, and fountains in the 

 midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness 

 a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." 

 " The beast of the field shall honor me, and the owls, 

 because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers 

 in the desert." And I said to myself, " Surely He 

 sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run 

 among the hills.' " About three o'clock in the after- 

 noon, as I sat looking out upon the lake, a heavy 

 jar shook the earth, and simultaneously the air vi- 

 brated with the sound of thunder. Turning my 

 eyes toward the west, I perceived a whitish mist 

 gathering along the mountains, wdiile a few ragged 

 scuds came racing up from behind it, and I knew 

 that in the valleys w^estward columns of storm 

 were moving to the onset. 



Amid this mountainous region tempests give 

 brief warning of their approach. Walled in as 

 these lakes are by mountains, behind which the 



