Camping and Hunting in the Hkoshoni 



trickled, literally, hundreds of streams, 

 separating, spreading, uniting, and spread- 

 ing again, as they crept or thundered down- 

 ward. No words can convey any idea of 

 the mingled beauty and grandeur of falling 

 water and immovable basalt when smitten 

 by the glory of the setting sun. One au- 

 tumn evening, two years after, we camped 

 at the same spot. We were smoking the 

 last pipe of peace before turning in, when 

 one of our party noticed a clear light 

 falling on the summit above us. As we 

 watched, the light crept slowly downward ; 

 at first we scarcely realized that it was the 

 moon. We were down, remember, in a 

 veritable chasm, one side of which — the 

 side before us — was about three thousand 

 feet higher than the other ; and thus the 

 moonbeams lit up its edge long before they 

 touched the little prairie at its feet, where 

 our camp lay. A great belt of clouds lay on 

 the rocky ridge at our back ; and athwart 

 these the moonlight passed, casting their 

 moving shadows on the great gray mirror 

 we were looking up at. What grotesque 

 shapes they took, as they wound and un- 

 wound their long folds ! There we sat and 

 watched them, until at last such moon- 

 light as you can only see when you are al- 

 most seven thousand feet above the damper, 



58 



