ver;
the sharp, welcome tang of frost was in the air; the snow was hard
underfoot. Out upon the gleaming surface of the lake I went for nigh a
mile, resolutely refusing to look behind. I knew what vision awaited me
when I turned around, had, indeed, caught a slight glimpse as I left the
cabin, and I wanted the smooth, open foreground of the lake that I
might see it to the best advantage.

[Sidenote: DENALI AND HIS WIFE]

There is probably no other view of North America's greatest mountain
group comparable to that from Lake Minchumina. From almost every other
coign of vantage in the interior I had seen it and found it more or less
unsatisfying. Only from distant points like the Pedro Dome or the summit
between Rampart and Glen Gulch does the whole mass and uplift of it come
into view with dignity and impressiveness. At close range the peaks seem
stunted and inconspicuous, their rounded, retreating slopes lacking
strong lines and decided character. But from the lake the precipitous
western face of Denali and Denali's Wife rise sheer, revealed by the
level foreground of the snow from base to summit. It was, indeed, a
glorious scene. There stood the master peak, seeming a stupendous
vertical wall of rock rising twenty thousand feet to a splendid sharp
crest perhaps some forty or fifty miles away; there, a little farther to
the south, rose the companion mass, a smaller but still enormous
elevation of equally savage inaccessibility; while between them, near
the base, little sharp peaks stretched like a corridor of ruined arches
from mass to mass. One was struck at once by the simple appropriateness
of the native names for these mountains. The master peak is Denali--the
great one; the lesser peak is Denali's Wife; and the little peaks
between are the children. And my indignation kindled at the substitution
of modern names for these ancient mountain names bestowed immemorially
by the original inhabitants of the land! Is it too late to strike Mount
McKinley and Mount Foraker from the map? The names were given fifteen or
sixteen years ago only, by one who saw them no nearer than a hundred
miles. Is it too late to restore the native names contemptuously
displaced?

The majesty of the scene grew upon me as I gazed, and presently hand
went to camera that some record of it might be attempted. But alas for
the limitations of photography! I knew, even as I made the exposures,
first at one one-hundredth of a second and then at one-fi