VII 

 THE BUTTERFLIES OF MOUNT HOOD 



f ow often one becomes the victim of 

 one's special interests ! I climbed to 

 the peak of Hood, looked down 

 upon Oregon and into her neighbor 

 States, saw Shasta far off to the 

 south, and Rainier far off to the north, and then 

 descended, thinking and wondering more about 

 a flock of little butterflies that were wavering 

 about the summit than about the overpower- 

 ing panorama of river and plain and mountain- 

 range that had been spread so far beneath me. 

 Or was I the victim, rather, of my inheritance ? 

 Was it because I happened to be born, not on a 

 mountain-peak eleven thousand two hundred and 

 twenty-five feet above the sea, but in a sandy 

 field at sea-level ? I was born in a field bordering 

 a meadow whose grasses ran soon into sedges and 

 then into the reeds of a river that flowed into the 

 bay; and I found myself on the summit of Hood 



