MOUNTAINS

TuroucH pass and draw and lofty upland the
August sun struck upon yellow leaves in the buck-
brush. It ripened the berries of the juniper, and dried
up the fallen raspberries on the ground. Mist settled
and rose and drifted; the streams sank in their beds.
Coarse swamp-grass bent in the wind and straight-
ened into stillness with sudden frost at night. Rain-
bows came and went across the valleys, and sun-
light came and went behind the rolling clouds.

Dropping starkly downward from perilous high
rims, the rocky walls of canyons disappeared into
narrow darkness; and at their hidden bases the
waters ran in urgent secrecy a thousand feet below
the floors of mountain draw and valley.

Sweeping steeply upward with their timber and
their straggling, stunted trees and their few last
shrubs and bushes, the grey-green hills rose bare
and bleak and windswept to stand in massive sil-
houette against the sky. Long lakes lay green and
still at their feet, and across the high baldness of
their summits raced clouds and the shadows of

clouds.
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