y of broad cup-like sweeps and bold outcropping ledges. Imagine
a forest of pine-trees bigger than any pines you ever saw
before,--pines eight and ten feet through, so huge that you can hardly
look over one of their prostrate trunks even from the back of your
pony. Imagine, further, singing little streams of ice-cold water, deep
refreshing shadows, a soft carpet of pine-needles through which the
faint furrow of the trail runs as over velvet. And then, last of all,
in a wide opening, clear as though chopped and plowed by some
back-woodsman, a park of grass, fresh grass, green as a precious stone.

This was our first sight of the mountain meadows. From time to time we
found others, sometimes a half dozen in a day. The rough country came
down close about them, edging to the very hair-line of the magic
circle, which seemed to assure their placid sunny peace. An upheaval
of splintered granite often tossed and tumbled in the abandon of an
unrestrained passion that seemed irresistibly to overwhelm the sanities
of a whole region; but somewhere, in the very forefront of turmoil, was
like to slumber one of these little meadows, as unconscious of anything
but its own flawless green simplicity as a child asleep in mid-ocean.
Or, away up in the snows, warmed by the fortuity of reflected heat, its
emerald eye looked bravely out to the heavens. Or, as here, it rested
confidingly in the very heart of the austere forest.

Always these parks are green; always are they clear and open. Their
size varies widely. Some are as little as a city lawn; others, like
the great Monache,[1] are miles in extent. In them resides the
possibility of your traveling the high country; for they supply the
feed for your horses.

Being desert-weary, the Tenderfoot and I cried out with the joy of it,
and told in extravagant language how this was the best camp we had ever
made.

"It's a bum camp," growled Wes. "If we couldn't get better camps than
this, I'd quit the game."

He expatiated on the fact that this particular meadow was somewhat
boggy; that the feed was too watery; that there'd be a cold wind down
through the pines; and other small and minor details. But we, our
backs propped against appropriately slanted rocks, our pipes well
aglow, gazed down the twilight through the wonderful great columns of
the trees to where the white horses shone like snow against the
unaccustomed relief of green, and laughed him to scorn. What did
we--or the