At dawn I rose and shook myself free of the buffalo robe,
coated with hoar-frost. The ashes of the fire were lifeless; in the dim
morning the air was bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but snatched
up my rifle, pulled on my fur cap and gloves, and strode off up a side
ravine; as I walked I ate some mouthfuls of venison, left over from
supper.
Two hours of toil up the steep mountain brought me to the top of a spur.
The sun had risen, but was hidden behind a bank of sullen clouds. On the
divide I halted, and gazed out over a vast landscape, inconceivably wild
and dismal. Around me towered the stupendous mountain masses which make
up the backbone of the Rockies. From my feet, as far as I could see,
stretched a rugged and barren chaos of ridges and detached rock masses.
Behind me, far below, the stream wound like a silver ribbon, fringed
with dark conifers and the changing, dying foliage of poplar and quaking
aspen. In front the bottoms of the valleys were filled with the sombre
evergreen forest, dotted here and there with black, ice-skimmed tarns;
and the dark spruces clustered also in the higher gorges, and were
scattered thinly along the mountain sides.
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