MOUNTAIN-BAERIERS 



219 



turies. It is an old talus of one of the spurs. 

 You wind about it diagonally until different 

 ground is reached, and then you are once more 

 upon a ridge — higher by a spur than before. 



Again the scene changes. An open park- 

 like country appears covered with tall grass, 

 the sunlight flickers on the shiny leaves of live- 

 oaks, and dotted here and there are tall yuccas 

 in bloom — the last of the desert growths to 

 vanish from the scene. Flowers strange to the 

 desert are growing in the grass — clumps of yel- 

 low violets, little fields of pink alfileria, purple 

 lilies, purple nightshades, red paint-brushes, 

 and flaming fire-rods. And there are birds in the 

 trees that know the desert only as they fly — blue 

 birds with red breasts as in New England, blue- 

 jays with their chatter as in Minnesota, blue- 

 backed woodpeckers with their tapping on dead 

 limbs as in Pennsylvania. And here was once 

 the stamping-ground of the mule-deer. Here 

 in the old days under the shade of the live-oak 

 he would drowse away the heat of the day and 

 at night perhaps step down to the desert. He 

 was safe then in the open country, but to-day 

 he knows danger and skulks in the depths of 

 the chaparral, from which a hound can scarcely 

 drive him. 



Among the 

 live-oaks. 



Birds and 

 deer. 



