[Illustration]

Mountain and Valley


It is hard for us to leave the falls with all their surrounding
beauty, and with reluctance we take one last look at this delightful
glen planted in the heart of the wilderness, and strike out on the
upward trail.

At a turn in the path, where it seems as if we were about to walk off
into space, we get a glimpse through the trees of Mount Tamalpais.
Towering above us with its seam-scarred sides, rent and torn by the
storms of centuries, it rears its jagged dome amid the clouds. We can
just make out a train of diminutive cars winding a tortuous course in
and out around the curves, the toy engine fighting every inch of the
steep incline, and panting like an athlete with Herculean efforts to
reach the summit. Across the intervening space a hawk wheels and turns
in ever-widening circles. We watch him through the glass, rising
higher and higher with each successive sweep, until he fades into a
mere speck in the distant blue.

Up we climb, until another view discloses the valley below us like a
panorama. We creep out to the very edge, and for miles in either
direction it stretches away, as if some giant hand had cleaved for
himself a pathway between the mountains. We stand spellbound,