men folks at least ascribe to the "miraculous." While the ladies were in the tent preparing to retire for the night, a large snow ball, apparently several inches in diameter, of a loose quality, indicating that it had only traveled through space a short distance, fell into the front entrance of the tent, and onto the ladies like unto a shower bath, greatly to their disgust. They at once began accusing us of the deed, and declared they would get even with us "in the morning," but we explained that we had been sitting quietly by the fire and finally convinced them that we were near the abode of Jove, and that the unexpected fall of the snow bail was simply one of his many atmospheric phenomena. Notwithstanding we were all made to realize by this "miracle" that we were in the domain of the mighty Jupiter, where he makes the meteors to shoot; clouds to form; lightnings to flash; stars to come and go and snow balls to fall in unexpected places, we were not made afraid, but laid down on the bosom of the mighty monarch of the Cascades and were soon in the land of dreams.

We had not been there long though as it seeme to us, when the guide

to prevent snow blindness and kept our faces covered with muslin to prevent blistering. Notwithstanding this precaution several of the party were badly burned. The rays of the sun were just beginning to shoot athwart the eastern skies, and brighten the gray dawn into the full light of a glorious day. As we swung away to the left the mountain was between us and the sun so we did not see the great luminary rise, but as compensation we were presented with a very perfect mirage off to the south, standing well up in the heavens, and presenting, in perfect outline, the shadow of Mount Hood.

Our general course was up the long slope stretching off to the south and plainly visible from Portland on a clear day. Nothing here could be more deceiving than distances. For instance, a place on place on the side of the mountain, known as the "Triangle Moraine" looked to us not more than two cr three hundred yards ahead, but the guide told us it was more than a mile, and when we had walked it, we would have sworn it was three.

We trudged along up this wind-swept stretch without incident of note, our alpinestocks making a measured scrape, scrape, as they rose and fell in the snow, until we reached the "Triangle Moraine," one mile from our starting point. Here we "cached" our coats and skirts, the ladies making their their appearance in bloomers, and began the more difficult part of our journey. The snow, newly fallen to the deptn of several inches, was soft, and the walking difficult. We would sometimes break through the crust, beneath the layer of soft snow, and go in up to our knees; the steps made by those ahead would slip or slide out from under the next one in line, giving him or her a fall in the snow. From the "Triangle Moraine" we went in single file, the guide in the lead, who made steps for us to follow in, either by tramping the snow down, or, if the surface was frozen, chopping through it with his hatchet.

Our next point to reach was Crater Rock, which we kept steadily in view, the way becoming more precipitous all the while. We were allowed now to stop

every few minutes, as the guide told us to "catch" our "breaths;" as we did so we would be taking in the immense panorama stretching out around us as far as the eye could reach.

About half way to Crater Rock one of ladies called a halt, the first signal of distress; her husband immediately rushed to her assistance and the rest of us soon gathered around, when she said in a broken voice: "I am going to cry, but it don't mean anything; I am going on up." So she sat down on the snow and had a good cry. Her heart was beating very fast and she was having trouble to breathe. We had given the guide, for he would not permit us to have charge of it, a flask of whisky, which was now brought into requisition for the first time. After a rest of a few minutes and a "dose" of the stimulant, the lady was able to resume the upward climb, and had no more trouble. She remarked afterwards that when she "got her second wind" she was all right.

We tried frequently after this to persuade the guide that what we most needed under such circumstances was more of that stimulant, but he doled it out with a parsimonious hand, his excuse being that he wanted "none but clear heads at such dizzy heights." We were now well up under Crater Rock, which rose a hundred feet or more almost perpendicular in front of us. The guide warned us of the danger from loose, rock bounding down upon us, and instructed us as a means of avoiding this danger to walk about six feet apart, so that when we heard or saw rocks coming we could step to one side or the other and let them pass. We made a long detour towards the south, out near the edge of the Great Crevasse, leaving Crater Rock to the left; thence north up a very steep place to a sort of bench on the Rock where we were to take luncheon. This we found the hardest part of our long climb. Slowly, foot by foot, sometimes almost pulling ourselves over the snow by means of our alpinstocks, we got over this precipitous pass and safely upon the solid rock. The fumes of sulphur were now plainly "visible," so much so as to be almost nauseating. The guide procurred from

55

a point a few feet below rock steaming hot, against which the ladies warmed their feet. While standing there gazing at the wondrous scenes around us, we were startled by a terrific crash above and saw bounding towards us from the topmost terrace of Crater Rock an avalanche of loose boulders. We huddled together, expecting to be struck the next minute, but fortunately the avalanche fell away to our left several feet. We escaped the rock but we did not escape a severe reproval from the guide, by whom we were reminded that he had instructed us to keep well apart in such an emergency, and we had rushed together like a lot of sheep. In order to make our offending seem as light as possible, we told him that we were intending to separate if the rocks had come any nearer.

It was now noon and we had been eight hours coming two miles. The sun was beating down upon the mountain with an intense heat, which was melting and loosening the snow and ice, so that great slides from the cliffs above were moving down. From Steel Cliff, across the crevasse from where we were lunching, great avalanches of ice and rock would break loose with a terrific roar and go thundering down into the ravine to be finally carried into the glacier below. One seeing these processes at work-of avalanche slide and glacier -all tearing away from the mountain would naturally conclude that Mt. Hood will finally become what Joe Meek used to say it was when he first came to the country, "a hole in the ground." Pursuant to preconcerted arrangement we here signaled to Mrs. Yocum at Government Camp by means of a heliograph, that "all is well with us," and almost immediately received an answer from her to the same effect, which reminded us that we still bore some relation to the earth below us.

We now resumed our journey working our way back off of the rocks into the pass leading up to the Arete which extends from Crater Rock to the Great Crevasse. The Arete is a narrow ridge about three feet wide on the top, along which we had to walk. The sides of this ridge drop away almost perpendic

Of loveliest blue spread garlands at your feet?

God! Let the torrents like a shout of nations Answer, and let the ice plains echo, God."

The spell was broken by the stern command of the guide, "we must start back." Slowly, as if awakening from a trance, we turned away from the majestic spectacle to begin the descent. We soon found that going down was quite a different process from going up. We had to set our alpinstocks on the lower side, step against them carefully, breaking the snow down until we found solid footing; then reset the alpinstocks another step ahead, and break down the snow beside them as before, and so on, repeating this with every step. In addition to these precautions, the guide furnished us a long rope which each took hold of, with instructions to hold onto it like grim death, in case of a slip or fall. In this manner we worked our way back down across the Great Crevasse, down past Crater Rock to the snow fields below. We now felt that all danger was

past and we could congratulate each other on our achievement. We prepared here for a grand glissade, and sitting down on the snow, guiding ourselves with our alpinstocks, we went down the mountain side for about a mile as though we had been shot out of one of the battleship Oregon's 14-inch guns. After that we were satisfied to walk the rest of the way, gradually cooling and drying off as we went along. The guide took the ladies in charge and made a "bee-line" for

57

Government Camp, while the rest of us had to go to the camp where we had stayed the night before and bring the horse and outfit.

The only difficulty we had in this was. to prevent the sled from running over the horse on the down grade. Sometimes, on very steep places, in the effort to hold the sled back we would be thrown heels over head in the snow, and the horse and sled end up in a confused mass at the bottom of the drift and we would have to untangle them as best we could.

Many times the sled would turn completely over and be on top of the baggage as it slid over the snow. Sometimes they would both be on the horse, and sometimes the horse would be on them. When we reached Government Camp one runner of the sled was gone, the axe and coffee pot had disappeared, and the baggage looked as though it might have participated in the attempt of Pharaoh's army to cross the Red Sea. The only presentable thing in the outfit was the faithful animal that had dragged our load to the timber-line and back.

We now began to realize that we were tired. Oh, so tired! The mosquitoes had their own way with us, for we did not have energy enough left to resist them. Even Mrs. Yocum's sumptous dinner, which was all in readiness for us, with wild blackberry pie for desert, could not tempt our appetites. We were tootired, even, to eat. All we wanted, all we cared for, was a place where we could lay our weary bones down for a good night's rest.

We were greatly refreshed by morning, and delighted our landlady by doing ample justice to a fine breakfast. After resting at Government Camp a couple of days we went on twelve miles further, following the old Barlow Road over the summit, to Clear Lake, a beautiful lake nestling under the shadow of Mt. Hood and covering with its placid waters about 1200 acres. The only feature detracting from its picturesqueness is the fact that the lake is full of high grass, standing very thick and tall. Strange as it may seem, the water of the lake is quite warm. Trout are plentiful, the average size being from 10 to 12 inches, and