ground in the opening, were covered with frozen particles of vapor,
and the scene, shut in by fog, was chill and dreary enough.

We were now not long in squaring an account with Slide, and making
ready to leave. Round pellets of snow began to fall, and we came off
the mountain on the 10th of June in a November storm and
temperature. Our purpose was to return by the same valley we had
come. A well-defined trail led off the summit to the north; to this
we committed ourselves. In a few minutes we emerged at the head of
the slide that had given the mountain its name. This was the path
made by visitors to the scene; when it ended, the track of the
avalanche began; no bigger than your hand, apparently, had it been
at first, but it rapidly grew, until it became several rods in
width. It dropped down from our feet straight as an arrow until it
was lost in the fog, and looked perilously steep. The dark forms of
the spruce were clinging to the edge of it, as if reaching out to
their fellows to save them. We hesitated on the brink, but finally
cautiously began the descent. The rock was quite naked and slippery,
and only on the margin of the slide were there any boulders to stay
the foot, or bushy growths to aid the hand. As we paused, after some
minutes, to select our course, one of the finest surprises of the
trip awaited us: the fog in our front was swiftly whirled up by the
breeze, like the drop-curtain at the theatre, only much more
rapidly, and in a twinkling the vast gulf opened before us. It was
so sudden as to be almost bewildering. The world opened like a book,
and there were the pictures; the spaces were without a film, the
forests and mountains looked surprisingly near; in the heart of the
northern Catskills a wild valley was seen flooded with sunlight.
Then the curtain ran down again, and nothing was left but the gray
strip of rock to which we clung, plunging down into the obscurity.
Down and down we made our way. Then the fog lifted again. It was
Jack and his beanstalk renewed; new wonders, new views, awaited us
every few moments, till at last the whole valley below us stood in
the clear sunshine. We passed down a precipice, and there was a rill
of water, the beginning of the creek that wound through the valley
below; farther on, in a deep depression, lay the remains of an old
snow-bank; Winter had made his last stand here, and April flowers
were springing up almost amid his very bones. We did not find a
palace, and