ought we
began to see the trappers, but they never did us any harm. Most of
them were as careful of our temples as were the Indians. While the
trappers still roamed, there came a very snowy winter, and snow-slides
mowed us down by thousands. Many of us were long buried beneath the
snow. The old trees became dreadfully alarmed, and they feared that
the Ice King was returning. For weeks they talked of nothing else, but
in the spring, when the mountain-sides began to warm and peel off in
earth-avalanches, we had a real danger to discuss.

"Shortly after the snowy winter, the gold-seekers came with their
fire havoc. For fifty years we have done our best to hold our ground,
but beyond our gulch relentless fire and flashing steel, together with
the floods with which outraged Nature seeks to revenge herself, have
slain the grand majority, and much, even, of the precious dust of our
ancestors has been washed away."

With the exception of the night I had the geologist, my days and
nights in this locality were spent entirely alone. The blaze of the
camp-fire, moonlight, the music and movement of the winds, light and
shade, and the eloquence of silence all impressed me more deeply here
than anywhere else I have ever been. Every day there was a delightful
play of light and shade, and this was especially effective on the
summits; the ever-changing light upon the serrated mountain-crests
kept constantly altering their tone and outline. Black and white they
stood in midday glare, but a new grandeur was born when these tattered
crags appeared above storm-clouds. Fleeting glimpses of the crests
through a surging storm arouse strange feelings, and one is at bay,
as though having just awakened amid the vast and vague on another
planet. But when the long, white evening light streams from the west
between the minarets, and the black buttressed crags wear the alpine
glow, one's feelings are too deep for words.

The wind sometimes flowed like a torrent across the ridges, surging
and ripping between the minarets, then bearing down like an avalanche
upon the purple sylvan ocean, where it tossed the trees with boom,
roar, and wild commotion. I usually camped where it showed the most
enthusiasm. Here I often enjoyed the songs or the fierce activities
of the wind. The absence and the presence of wind ever stirred me
strongly. Weird and strange are the feelings that flow as the winds
sweep and sound through the trees. The Storm King has a bugle