Camping atid Hunting in the Shoshone 



selves, and in its infancy the great river 

 sends up its baby murmur. Behind me, 

 the giant heads of the Teton cut the rosy 

 evening sky, sharp and clear, as does the 

 last thousand feet of the Matterhorn. I 

 was comfortably ensconced in the w^arm, 

 brown pine-needles that smothered up the 

 great knees of a gnarled nut-pine, whose 

 roots offered me an arm-chair, and round 

 me, for the space of two or three acres, 

 the short, crisp greensward, that is only 

 found where snow has lain for months 

 previously, was spangled and starred all 

 over with such blue and ^vhite and red 

 mountain flowers as are nowhere else seen 

 in this land. 



I wish I had time and skill to write of 

 those sweet mountain flowers ; there is 

 nothing quite so beautiful in any other 

 Alpine land I know of, our mountains 

 altogether outstripping the Swiss or Aus- 

 trian Alps in the wealth, variety, and sweet- 

 ness of their flora. I don't know anything 

 of botany, I am ashamed to say ; but we 

 have counted wellnigh a hundred different 

 flowers in bloom during one afternoon's 

 tramp. Amid the lush green of the rich 

 valleys great masses of harebell and borage 

 and gentian carpet the ground. Here and 

 there, beautifully contrasting with their 



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