68 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
clear and sweet came to me. It was tlie first 
sound, save thunder and wind, that I had heard 
since reaching the peak. A long, pure note, 
followed by one much higher, repeated several 
times, formed the song of my companion on the 
heights. It was the farewell to the day of a 
white-throated sparrow, that sweetest singer of 
the mountain peaks. A feeling of forlornness 
which had been creeping over me was dispelled. 
Let the storm come; I was ready for it. 
Not many rods below the peak, on the very 
verge of the eastern crag, stands an enormous 
detached rock, roughly cubical in shape, and at 
least twenty feet in each dimension. This rock, 
which is known as u the Cow,” rests upon a 
narrow shelf having a saucer-shaped depression 
about fifteen feet in diameter in its upper sur¬ 
face. The Cow projects slightly beyond the 
outer edge of the ledge, but at the point where 
it projects the concavity of the under granite 
leaves a space exactly eighteen inches in height 
and several feet long, which admits light into 
the hollow beneath the Cow. Years before, I 
had discovered this strange cave, and had found 
that a projecting corner of rock gave standing- 
room near enough to the narrow mouth to allow 
a man to creep into it. To this shelter I deter¬ 
mined to take my luggage for safe-keeping dur¬ 
ing the rain. As I wound my way down the 
