"Cloudy; cold; wind strong, southerly; time of ascent, six hours." A minimum thermometer, left by Mr. J. N. LeConte the year previous, showed the lowest temperature reached during the winter to have been thirteen degrees (Fahr.) below zero. This does not seem a remarkable degree of cold for that altitude, and compared with points on the Nevada State line, many thousand feet lower, but where the atmosphere is intensely dry, the temperature is indeed mild. It is supposed to be due to the tem and each time we found some new beauty We gave a great sigh of relief, as we once more reached the snow. Striking it high up on the tongue, we prepared for a glorious glissade. Down we sat and away Storm Over Mount Lyell-Mount McClure to the Right pering effect of the moisture-laden winds from the Pacific. The biting wind, the threatening weather, and the lateness of the afternoon, made it imperative for us to start back for camp. But it had been well worth while to come thus far to spend an hour. So magnificent was the view that we did not feel we could come to a full realization of it; and in fact for days after we left the mountain there returned visions of that prospect, we went, and in half a minute we had traveled the distance that it had taken half an hour to pass over on our upward climb. In ten minutes we had rejoined our companion, who had remained on the rocks enduring the blistering reflection of the snow. He said that he had heard our voices plainly, though he was a mile from the summit. Tired, but with hearts full of satisfaction, we reached camp. As a result of the day on the snow, two of us had our faces and hands badly swollen and blistered, and for several days the heat of the afternoon sun caused us great suffering. The night was extremely cold. The storm that had threatened all day doubtless swept over the mountains, and the chill blasts wafted down upon us from the snow left our blankets white and stiff with rime. We were content to spend the next forenoon in loafing about camp and bartering with the sheep-herders for some fresh mut ton. The only drawback to the negotiations was that, in order to get the meat, it was necessary to wade the river waistdeep in water that left the snow not three miles away. That night we camped at the lower end. of the meadows by Cathedral Creek, and the following day passed up through Cathedral Pass, Long Meadows, and Sunrise Ridge, into Little Yosemite. The day after brought us again to the Yosemite. Valley, by way of the Nevada and Illillouette Falls and Glacier Point. BY FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD ILLUSTRATED BY MISS BRADSHAW 貞 HE cabin stood on a naked crag overlooking one of the wildest gulches in the Sierra Madre Mountains. Behind it was a sheltered basin, fringed with trees and filled with rich black soil by the wash of ages; but a single rod from the front porch was a gorge a thousand feet deep, and only a great live-oak, with one side blasted by some forgotten forest fire that had swept up the gulch, flung a grateful shadow over the little home and reared a sturdy barrier between it and the hidden depths below. In rural regions people are not slow to express their sentiments, and it was agreed by all the ranchmen and women for miles around that only a romantic young couple like Richard Davenport and his wife. would have ventured to rear their home on the edge of a bleak, windswept cliff, isolated from all neighbors. The young people themselves could afford to laugh at such comments. Already their rough mountain clearing, under the magical influence of California sunshine and the more magical touch of manful industry, was being transformed into an earthly paradise. It was little more than a year since they had taken up the land, but in the warm hollow fruit-trees twice the height of a man were blossoming for a second time, and a berry-patch, generously watered by the flow from a spring high up the cañon, was fruiting in reckless profusion for the early spring market. A pair of sleek Jersey cows grazed in an alfalfa-patch, and fields of waving barley were yellowing on the hillslope above. Over the cabin roof a climbing rose had already flung a slender, arrowy arm, strung with lancelike leaves of glossy green and tipped with a single creamy white flower, which lifted its pure radiance above the blackening shingles like Bethlehem's star. The sweet peas on the trellis spread their tinted wings and swayed lightly on their slender stems, to whisper tender confidences to each other, groups of velvety pansies nodded knowingly, beds of mignonette breathed their fragrance like incense on the air, begonias, pale pink and rosy crimson, hearkened, trembling, to the story, and an indiscriminate company of marigolds, calliopsis, and buttercups,jolly, vulgar little crowd,-made merry over it, while the tall white lily lifted her face to the window in yearning sympathy. Inside the room a fair woman, with a smile and a sigh, set the last loving stitch in something she had been fashioning, carefully folded and laid it on a heap of tiny garments, then dropped upon her knees and buried her face in the soft pile. And above the roof the white rose hung like Bethlehem's star. Up in the oak tree, all unknown to the occupants of the redwood cabin, there had been for many days a great bustle and flutter, as, straw by straw, hair by hair, and twig by twig, another home had been. building, and a wee brown bird had added the last dainty touch by plucking from her own breast the soft down that lined it. The location of this nest had caused a great scandal and commotion in the birdworld, for instead of placing it in some sheltered nook, after the fashion of prudent, conservative birds, this giddy young pair had insisted upon building in the crotch of a naked limb extending over the gulch. Advice and admonition had all been wasted. "Give me the ridg ole of a roof or the topmost bough of a tree for a song!" said the hermit thrush. "But when it comes to building a home, you want the deepest, most secret place in all the chaparral,a place surrounded by leaves, and with all its avenues guarded, into which no curious eyes can pry, and where no enemy can spy you out." |