serenity of Tahoe, I have remained here sketching, reveling in
the view from the veranda, and strolling in the forest. At this
height there is frost every night of the year, and my fingers are
benumbed.

The beauty is entrancing. The sinking sun is out of sight behind
the western Sierras, and all the pine-hung promontories on this
side of the water are rich indigo, just reddened with lake,
deepening here and there into Tyrian purple. The peaks above,
which still catch the sun, are bright rose-red, and all the
mountains on the other side are pink; and pink, too, are the
far-off summits on which the snow-drifts rest. Indigo, red, and
orange tints stain the still water, which lies solemn and dark
against the shore, under the shadow of stately pines. An hour
later, and a moon nearly full--not a pale, flat disc, but a
radiant sphere--has wheeled up into the flushed sky. The sunset
has passed through every stage of beauty, through every glory of
color, through riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness,
into a long, dreamy, painless rest, succeeded by the profound
solemnity of the moonlight, and a stillness broken only by the
night cries of beasts in the aromatic forests.
I. L. B.


Letter II

A lady's "get-up"--Grizzly bears--The "Gems of the Sierras"--A
tragic tale--A carnival of color.

CHEYENNE, WYOMING, September 7.