Crumbling its bars, with chanted spell,
Their radiant dust he threw,
And everywhere a handful fell
A million flow’rets grew.”
As the early snow on the mountains had killed the flowers before our visit, a volume of pressed “Wild Flowers from the Rockies” was presented to each one of our party by our host. The flowers were gone but the Autumn tints had painted the grand old mountain, emerald, garnet, and gold.
Miss L. I. S. says:
“One curious fact I remember was, that the pine trees all presented branches on but one side of the trunk, and that the south, for the bleak north winds prove too severe for growth on that side, and instead of growing up, like well regulated trees, the branches all hang down, bended by their weight of snow, presenting a very singular appearance.
“How many times our blood would run cold as we skirted a particularly sharp turn on the edge of a very steep precipice.
“Snow was very plenty about us, and often we would be driving through piles two and three feet deep in some sheltered portion of the road.
“Imagine, ye who were not there, sinking in above the hubs in snow, genuine snow in its pristine beauty, and then you can realize why his lordship, the Peak, looks so white at a distance. And now comes the time for the furs and mittens and lap-robes, and were it not for the bright sun I imagine some noses would have been very blue.