no 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



explaining how she had roofed-in the lean-to with the tin 

 of coal-oil cans and how she had put in the windows. 

 She was about sixteen years old, but her hands were 

 deeply calloused by hard toil, and she seemed to consider 

 it a matter of course to do a man's work. 



Returning to my blankets at the cowboys' camp-fire, 

 I rolled up for the night. From the cozy comfort of my 

 sleeping-bag I enjoyed a long and silent contemplation 

 of the mountain in the bright starlight of that clear, va- 

 porless atmosphere. Slumber overcame me as I listened 

 to the murmur of the cowboys sitting about their fire 

 telling tall stories of the ranch and preparing for their 

 early breakfast. As the fire waned with the passing 

 hours, the extreme cold of the early morning penetrated 

 my covering and I woke to suffer and wait in chilly 

 discomfort the slow-coming dawn. Ice froze one and a 

 half inches thick in pools near our camp that night. 



But after a steak with the cowboys and a cup of tea 

 and bread and butter at the ranch, warmed by this double 

 hospitality, I loaded up my camera, tripod, and binocu- 

 lars, pocketed my luncheon of canned deviled ham, gra- 

 ham wafers, seeded raisins and prunes, slung on my 

 canteen, and started for the mountain. 



There was no trail, so I took my way across the ranch 

 in the open meadows till I reached the first sparsely 

 grown timber, which was the mountain aspen. The white 

 trunks and symmetrical tops were very striking in the 

 open landscape. Soon I reached the evergreens, and the 

 occasional clumps of aspen contrasted charmingly with 

 the dark-green foliage of the conifers. 



That was a glorious morning. The clear, blue sky, 

 the novel and beautiful landscape, and the pure ozone- 



