We camped that night at a lake whose banks were pebbled in the manner of an artificial pond, and whose setting was a thin meadow of the fine hair-grass, for the grazing of which the horses had to bare their teeth.All about, the granite mountains rose.
The timber-line, even of the rare shrub-like gnome-trees, ceased here.Above us was nothing whatever but granite rock, snow, and the sky.
It was just before dusk, and in the lake the fish were jumping eagerly.They took the fly well, and before the fire was alight we had caught three for supper.When I say we caught but three, you will understand that they were of good size.Firewood was scarce, but we dragged in enough by means of Old Slob and a riata to build us a good fire.And we needed it, for the cold descended on us with the sharpness and vigor of eleven thousand feet.
For such an altitude the spot was ideal.The lake just below us was full of fish.A little stream ran from it by our very elbows.The slight elevation was level, and covered with enough soil to offer a fairly good substructure for our beds.The flat in which was the lake reached on up narrower and narrower to the foot of the last slope, furnishing for the horses an admirable natural corral about a mile long.And the view was magnificent.
First of all there were the mountains above us, towering grandly serene against the sky of morning;then all about us the tumultuous slabs and boulders and blocks of granite among which dare-devil and hardy little trees clung to a footing as though in defiance of some great force exerted against them; then below us a sheer drop, into which our brook plunged, with its suggestion of depths; and finally beyond those depths the giant peaks of the highest Sierras rising lofty as the sky, shrouded in a calm and stately peace.
Next day the Tenderfoot and I climbed to the top.Wes decided at the last minute that he hadn't lost any mountains, and would prefer to fish.
The ascent was accompanied by much breathlessness and a heavy pounding of our hearts, so that we were forced to stop every twenty feet to recover our physical balance.Each step upward dragged at our feet like a leaden weight.Yet once we were on the level, or once we ceased our very real exertions for a second or so, the difficulty left us, and we breathed as easily as in the lower altitudes.
The air itself was of a quality 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.
