cramble down the rocks, drinking cup in hand,
and slake our thirst at this crystal fountain. Was ever a more
delightful draught for thirsty mortals than from this little pool
hidden away here in this mountain fastness? It is a place in which
druids and wood-nymphs might revel, surrounded on all sides by stately
trees and moss-grown rocks, fringed with ferns of all kinds, from the
delicate maidenhair to the wide-spreading shield variety, bordered
with blue and gold lupine (California's colors), and close to the
falls, a bush thickly covered with white flowering dogwood blossoms,
standing out like a rare painting against the green-and-brown
background--a spot to thrill the soul of an artist. Yet how many had
ever found this sylvan retreat, hidden away, as it is, from the main
highway?

[Illustration]

Mountain and Valley

It is hard for us to leave the falls with all their surrounding
beauty, and with reluctance we take one last look at this delightful
glen planted in the heart of the wilderness, and strike out on the
upward trail.

At a turn in the path, where it seems as if we were about to walk off
into space, we get a glimpse through the trees of Mount Tamalpais.
Towering above us with its seam-scarred sides, rent and torn by the
storms of centuries, it rears its jagged dome amid the clouds. We can
just make out a train of diminutive cars winding a tortuous course in
and out around the curves, the toy engine fighting every inch of the
steep incline, and panting like an athlete with Herculean efforts to
reach the summit. Across the intervening space a hawk wheels and turns
in ever-widening circles. We watch him through the glass, rising
higher and higher with each successive sweep, until he fades into a
mere speck in the distant blue.

Up we climb, until another view discloses the valley below us like a
panorama. We creep out to the very edge, and for miles in either
direction it stretches away, as if some giant hand had cleaved for
himself a pathway between the mountains. We stand spellbound,
entranced by the wonderful beauty of the scene, and drink long
draughts of the fresh mountain air.

The dazzling splendor of the noonday sun brings out vividly the
variegated colors of the foliage, and banks of white fleecy clouds
floating overhead trail their shadows over the valley and up the
mountainside like ghostly outriders. The pointed tops of the fir
trees, miles below us, look like stunted shrubbery; the