d lifted themselves mysteriously
from among their lesser neighbours, with which heretofore they had been
confused. In spite of very heavy exertions, I began to feel the cold; so
I unslung my rucksack and put on my buckskin shirt. The snow had become
very light and feathery. The high, still buttes and crags of the main
divide were right before me. Light fog wreaths drifted and eddied
slowly, now concealing, now revealing the solemn crags and buttresses.
Over everything--the rocks, the few stunted and twisted small trees, the
very surface of the snow itself--lay a heavy rime of frost. This rime
stood out in long, slender needles an inch to an inch and a half in
length, sparkling and fragile and beautiful. It seemed that a breath of
wind or even a loud sound would precipitate the glittering panoply to
ruin; but in all the really awesome silence and hushed breathlessness of
that strange upper world there was nothing to disturb them. The only
motion was that of the idly-drifting fog wreaths; the only sound was
that made by the singing of the blood in my ears! I felt as though I
were in a world holding its breath.

It was piercing cold. I ate a biscuit and a few prunes, tramping
energetically back and forth to keep warm. I could see in all directions
now: an infinity of bare peaks, with hardly a glimpse of forests or
streams or places where things might live. Goats are certainly either
fools or great poets.

After a half hour of fruitless examination of the cliffs I perforce had
to descend. The trip back was long. It had the added interest in that it
was bringing me nearer water. No thirst is quite so torturing as that
which afflicts one who climbs hard in cold, high altitudes. The throat
and mouth seem to shrivel and parch. Psychologically, it is even worse
than the desert thirst because in cold air it is unreasonable. Finally
it became so unendurable that I turned down from the spur-ridge long
before I should otherwise have done so, and did a good deal of extra
work merely to reach a little sooner the stream at the bottom of the
canon. When I reached it, I found that here it flowed underground.

CHAPTER IV

OTHER CLIMBS

For ten days we hunted and fished. When the opportunity offered, we made
a goat-survey of a new place. Finally, as time grew short, we realized
that we must concentrate our energies in one effort if we were to get
specimens of this most desirable of all American big game. Therefore
Fisher, Fra