"It looks like snow," said Rawlins quietly.

Hale turned towards him in astonishment. Nothing on earth or sky looked
less likely. It had been cold, but that might have been only a current
from the frozen peaks beyond, reaching the lower valley. The ridge
on which they had halted was still thick with yellowish-green summer
foliage, mingled with the darker evergreen of pine and fir. Oven-like
canyons in the long flanks of the mountain seemed still to glow with the
heat of yesterday's noon; the breathless air yet trembled and quivered
over stifling gorges and passes in the granite rocks, while far at their
feet sixty miles of perpetual summer stretched away over the winding
American River, now and then lost in a gossamer haze. It was scarcely
ripe October where they stood; they could see the plenitude of August
still lingering in the valleys.

"I've seen Thomson's Pass choked up with fifteen feet o' snow earlier
than this," said Rawlins, answering Hale's gaze; "and last September the
passengers sledded over the road we came last night, and all the time
Thomson, a mile lower down over the ridge in the hollow, smoking his
pipes under roses in his piazzy! Mountains is mighty uncertain; they
make their own weather ez they want it. I reckon you ain't wintered here
yet."

Hale was obliged to admit that he had only taken Eagle's Court in the
early spring.

"Oh, you're all right at Eagle's--when you're there! But it's like
Thomson's--it's the gettin' there that--Hallo! What's that?"