238 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



rocks and at the green leaves of the purple primrose 

 and the stalks of the yellow avens. They were 

 growing in little patches of sand between rock 

 slabs. Harriet asked where the plants and the 

 mountain-top birds came from. I told her that a 

 number of the same plants and animals were found 

 in the far north around the Arctic Circle. At one 

 time, many thousand years before, the Ice King 

 had sent his glaciers a few thousand miles from the 

 north, driving Arctic plants down on the moving 

 ice and ptarmigan in front of it. These plants and 

 birds had made their home on the mountain tops 

 and remained after the ice melted away. 



Harriet's aunt had told her that the Alps are 

 much colder and snowier than the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. No one lives as high in the Alps as the 

 mountain valley where we were living; timber- 

 line — the forest edge — is at 6,500 feet there, and 

 no plants or birds live above the altitude of 9,000 

 feet. 



As we stood for a moment before beginning the 

 descent Harriet turned and looked silently at the 

 far-distant, magnificent views to the north, south, 

 east, and west. Not a question was asked and I 

 have often wondered what impression they made 

 upon her. 



After having a little more than an hour on the 

 top of the Peak we started slowly homeward. When 

 a little below the altitude of 12,000 feet we dis- 

 mounted and searched among the boulders for the 



