TIME AND CHANGE 
crazy by it, as their sunken eyes and poor condition 
plainly showed. 
The trail became rougher and steeper as we as- 
cended, and the grass and trees gave place to low, 
scrubby bushes. We were half an hour or more in 
the cloud-belt, where the singing skylarks did not 
follow us. The clouds proved to be as loose of tex- 
ture and as innocent as any summer fog that loiters 
in our valleys; but it was good to emerge into the 
sunshine again, and see the jagged line of the top 
sensibly nearer, and the canopy of clouds unroll 
itself beneath us. Far ahead of us and near the 
summit we saw a band of wild goats — twenty-two, 
I counted — leisurely grazing along, and now and 
then casting glances down upon us. They were 
domestic animals gone wild, and still retained their 
bizarre colors of white and black. One big black 
leader with a long beard looked down at us and 
shook his head threateningly. We reached the sum- 
mit before the sun reached the horizon, and our eyes 
looked forth upon a strange world, indeed. On 
one hand the vast sea of cloud, into which the sun 
was about to drop, rolled away from the mountain 
below us, with its white surface and the irregular 
masses rising up from it, suggesting a sea of float- 
ing ice. Through rifts in, it we caught occasional 
glimpses of the Pacific — blue, vague, mystical gulfs 
that seemed filled with something less substantial 
than water. On the other hand was the vast crater 
138 
