The Aftermath of a Club Outing. 159 



of Dollar Lake, — stupidly named, since a dollar is the 

 least interesting of all things in the world to one in 

 the heart of the Sierra, and with the Sierra in his heart. 

 The lake was still full of ice. I found the fragment 

 of the jawbone of a bighorn high up among the rocks, 

 and the wife of the stockman told me that she had 

 on a former occasion found at the edge of the lake the 

 sheath of the horn of one of these animals, still well pre- 

 served, showing that quite recently they had lived here, 

 or at least had visited these peaks. With slight pains they 

 could be tempted back again, and when game refuges are 

 established, mountaineers may perhaps enjoy seeing 

 them once more. Above our luncheon place and below 

 the copper mine was a splendid cirque, very impressive 

 in naked granite and snow, with its meadow beneath of 

 fragrant and gleaming cyclamen. Columbines of deli- 

 cious sweetness, of the yellow kind, and a variant of the 

 same flower merging into orange and red, thus a hybrid 

 between the variety found above and that found below 

 this place, grew on our way, and bushes of white 

 spirea throve among the wreckage of avalanches which 

 had sadly rent the forest during this past season. A 

 half-century at least must elapse to make good the de- 

 struction caused in one season alone. In the evening of 

 this day Blake and I agreed to go up Mt. Brewer. 



The ascent of this mountain was so pleasant a climb 

 and one so typical of similar experiences that perhaps I 

 may be pardoned if I describe it somewhat in detail. 

 It was half-past 2 in the morning when I lighted the can- 

 dle in my folding lantern. Everything had been arranged 

 the night before ; soon the fire was lighted, the coffee 

 was boiling, and we stepped from camp, within the hour, 

 just at the first crack of dawn, — still too dark, save in 

 the moonlight, to see the trail. Under the heavy shade 

 of the trees skirting the meadow, one had to feel his 

 way along the trail with his feet. We stole by the 

 sleeping camp of the stockmen without awakening their 

 dogs, and at a quarter past 5 were at the mouth of 



