"Much snow--cold--no cougar--bad!"
"Stay in bed," yelled Jones.
"All right," I replied. "Say Jones, have you got 'em yet?"
He vouchsafed me no answer. I went to sleep then and dozed off and on
till noon, when the storm abated. We had dinner, or rather breakfast,
round a blazing bonfire.
"It's going to clear up," said Jim.
The forest around us was a somber and gloomy place. The cloud that had
enveloped the plateau lifted and began to move. It hit the tree tops,
sometimes rolling almost to the ground, then rising above the trees.
At first it moved slowly, rolling, forming, expanding, blooming like
a column of whirling gray smoke; then it gathered headway and rolled
onward through the forest. A gray, gloomy curtain, moving and
rippling, split by the trees, seemed to be passing over us. It rose
higher and higher, to split up in great globes, to roll apart, showing
glimpses of blue sky.
Shafts of golden sunshine shot down from these rifts, dispelling the
shadows and gloom, moving in paths of gold through the forest glade,
gleaming with brilliantly colored fire from the snow-wreathed pines.
The cloud rolled away and the sun shone hot. The trees began to drip.
A mist of diamonds filled the air, rainbows curved through every glade
and feathered patches of snow floated down.
A great bank of snow, sliding from the pine overhead almost buried
the Navajo, to our infinite delight.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185