horse's hoof. The
trail went softly, with the courtesy of great gentleness. Occasionally
we caught sight of other ridges,--also with pines,--across deep sloping
valleys, pine filled. The effect of the distant trees seen from above
was that of roughened velvet, here smooth and shining, there dark with
rich shadows. On these slopes played the wind. In the level countries
it sang through the forest progressively: here on the slope it struck a
thousand trees at once. The air was ennobled with the great voice, as
a church is ennobled by the tones of a great organ. Then we would drop
back again to the inner country, for our way did not contemplate the
descents nor climbs, but held to the general level of a plateau.

Clear fresh brooks ran in every ravine. Their water was snow-white
against the black rocks; or lay dark in bank-shadowed pools. As our
horses splashed across we could glimpse the rainbow trout flashing to
cover. Where the watered hollows grew lush were thickets full of
birds, outposts of the aggressively and cheerfully worldly in this
pine-land of spiritual detachment. Gorgeous bush-flowers, great of
petal as magnolias, with perfume that lay on the air like a heavy
drowsiness; long clear stretches of an ankle-high shrub of vivid
emerald, looking in the distance like sloping meadows of a peculiar
color-brilliance; patches of smaller flowers where for the trifling
space of a street's width the sun had unobstructed fall,--these from
time to time diversified the way, brought to our perceptions the
endearing trifles of earthiness, of humanity, befittingly to modify the
austerity of the great forest. At a brookside we saw, still fresh and
moist, the print of a bear's foot. From a patch of the little emerald
brush, a barren doe rose to her feet, eyed us a moment, and then
bounded away as though propelled by springs. We saw her from time to
time surmounting little elevations farther and farther away.

The air was like cold water. We had not lung capacity to satisfy our
desire for it. There came with it a dry exhilaration that brought high
spirits, an optimistic viewpoint, and a tremendous keen appetite. It
seemed that we could never tire. In fact we never did. Sometimes,
after a particularly hard day, we felt like resting; but it was always
after the day's work was done, never while it was under way. The
Tenderfoot and I one day went afoot twenty-two miles up and down a
mountain fourteen thousand feet h