After sunset R.C. and I went off down a trail into the woods, and sitting down under a huge spruce we listened. The forest was solemn and still. Far down somewhere roared a stream, and that was all the sound we heard. The gray shadows darkened and gloom penetrated the aisles of the forest, until all the sheltered places were black as pitch. The spruces looked spectral—and speaking. The silence of the woods was deep, profound, and primeval. It all worked on my imagination until I began to hear faint sounds, and finally grand orchestral crashings of melody.
On our return the strange creeping chill, that must be a descendant of the old elemental fear, caught me at all obscure curves in the trail.
Next day we started off early, and climbed through the woods and into the parks under the Dome. We scared a deer that had evidently been drinking. His fresh tracks led before us, but we could not catch a glimpse of him.
We climbed out of the parks, up onto the rocky ridges where the spruce grew scarce, and then farther to the jumble of stones that had weathered from the great peaks above, and beyond that up the slope where all the vegetation was dwarfed, deformed, and weird, strange manifestation of its struggle for life. Here the air grew keener and cooler, and the light seemed to expand. We rode on to the steep slope that led up to the gap we were to cross between the Dome and its companion.
