108 MOUNTAINS

the wet leaves of raspberry and strawberry plants.
Tall clumps of golden-rod stood round the camp
site, and aspens dappled the tent with the shadows
of their restless leaves. The Stikine flowed past
over the bank, lapping at the boulders. Behind the
bench the timbered slope rose steeply, cut slant-
wise by a narrow, stony trail.

The pack-horses wandered through the golden-
rod and under the boughs of the aspens, finding
temporary comfort and pleasure as their quivering
muzzles moved in succulent grass. Lily stood
dreamily beside the tent, eating a lupine-leaf, while
someone strapped a rifle to her saddle. She had
ceased to sigh. Her dark flanks shone in the watery
sunlight.

But the peace was transitory. Before long there
were harsh calls and exhortations. Grass and lupines
must be left behind among the gently rustling
trees, and the patient feet of horses must plod up
the stony trail; up, up through the spruce toward
the round sweep of the summit, and beyond the
summit to south and east for days and weeks into
a country too distant to be contemplated by a mind
that still mourned the lupine-leaves of the pleasant
river bench.