STEEP TRAILS 



flowers colored like the alpenglow that flushes 

 the snow. There are miles of wild roses, pink 

 bells of huckleberry and sweet manzanita, 

 every bell a honey-cup, plants that tell of the 

 north and of the south; tall nodding liUes, the 

 crimson sarcodes, rhododendron, cassiope, 

 and blessed linnsea; phlox, calycanthus, plum, 

 cherry, Crataegus, spiraea, mints, and clovers in 

 endless variety; ivesia, larkspur, and colum- 

 bine; golden aplopappus, hnosyris,^ bahia, 

 wyethia, arnica, brodiaea, etc., — making sheets 

 and beds of light edgings of bloom in lavish 

 abundance for the myriads of the air dependent 

 on their bounty. 



The common honey-bees, gone wild in this 

 sweet wilderness, gather tons of honey into the 

 hollows of the trees and rocks, clambering 

 eagerly through bramble and hucklebloom, 

 shaking the clustered bells of the generous 

 manzanita, now humming aloft among poUeny 

 willows and firs, now down on the ashy ground 

 among small gihas and buttercups, and anon 

 plunging into banks of snowy cherry and buck- 

 thorn. They consider the lilies and roll into 

 them, pushing their blunt poUeny faces against 

 them Uke babies on their mother's bosom; and 

 fondly, too, with eternal love does Mother 



' An obsolete genus of plants now replaced in the main 

 by Chrysothamnus and Ericameria. [Editor.] 



38 



