VIEW FROM PIKE’S PEAK. 59

 

like a great ship on fire; then it rose majestically from

out the deep, and mounted the sky—the glorious, glad,

thrice welcome sun; night gathered up her skirts and
fled, and away the cold winds followed after; and the
camp-fire was replenished, and we took up our beds
and went forth to sit beside it and wait for breakfast.

“After that, I went wandering off to various points,
leaping from rock to rock like a sizable mountain sheep.
I was stimulated and sustained by the high fine air; I
felt strangely light, yet with nothing of the dizziness or
sickness others complained of. ‘That which made
them drunk, made me bold;’ yet I could not have
walked and clambered about alone in that manner, had
I not been warmly and suitably dressed, and worn reg-
ular mountain shoes, heavy and hob-nailed. My cos-
tume was not picturesque, but it was safe and comfort-
able. I did not return until I had seen all that could be
seen from different sides of the great desolate summit.
The views were somewhat veiled in mist, but very
lovely in color, and all the grander in outline.

‘The distant mountain ranges then, and all that day,
seemed stupendously high, from the intervening valleys
and gorges being obscured by the light purple mist and
by smoke. From the eastern side I looked down on
our happy valley, and saw a little white bird-cage which
I knew must be the Manitou House, and a tiny brown
nut-shell, which, with a swelling breast, I recognized,
or fancied I recognized, as my cottage.”

* * * % * % *

Monument Park and the Garden of the Gods is most

————- OG

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