impossible to describe to you unless
you have traveled in the high countries. I know it is trite to say
that it had the exhilaration of wine, yet I can find no better simile.
We shouted and whooped and breathed deep and wanted to do things.

The immediate surroundings of that mountain peak were absolutely barren
and absolutely still. How it was accomplished so high up I do not know,
but the entire structure on which we moved--I cannot say walked--was
composed of huge granite slabs. Sometimes these were laid side by side
like exaggerated paving flags; but oftener they were up-ended, piled in
a confusion over which we had precariously to scramble. And the
silence. It was so still that the very ringing in our ears came to a
prominence absurd and almost terrifying. The wind swept by noiseless,
because it had nothing movable to startle into noise. The solid
eternal granite lay heavy in its statics across the possibility of even
a whisper. The blue vault of heaven seemed emptied of sound.

But the wind did stream by unceasingly, weird in the unaccustomedness
of its silence. And the sky was blue as a turquoise, and the sun
burned fiercely, and the air was cold as the water of a mountain spring.

We stretched ourselves behind a slab of granite, and ate the luncheon
we had brought, cold venison steak and bread. By and by a marvelous
thing happened. A flash of wings sparkled in the air, a brave little
voice challenged us cheerily, a pert tiny rock-wren flirted his tail
and darted his wings and wanted to know what we were thinking of anyway
to enter his especial territory. And shortly from nowhere appeared two
Canada Jays, silent as the wind itself, hoping for a share in our meal.
Then the Tenderfoot discovered in a niche some strange, hardy alpine
flowers. So we established a connection, through these wondrous brave
children of the great mother, with the world of living things.

After we had eaten, which was the very first thing we did, we walked to
the edge of the main crest and looked over. That edge went straight
down. I do not know how far, except that even in contemplation we
entirely lost our breaths, before we had fallen half way to the bottom.
Then intervened a ledge, and in the ledge was a round glacier lake of
the very deepest and richest ultramarine you can find among your
paint-tubes, and on the lake floated cakes of dazzling white ice. That
was enough for the moment.

Next we leaped at one bound dir