with the music of birds, and the parks are decked with flowers. Noisy
brooks meander through them; ledges of moss-covered rocks are seen; and
gleaming in the distance are the snow fields, and the mountain tops are
away in the clouds.

_June 4-_--We start early and run through to Brown's Park. Halfway down
the valley, a spur of a red mountain stretches across the river, which
cuts a canyon through it. Here the walls are comparatively low, but
vertical. A vast number of swallows have built their _adobe_ houses on
the face of the cliffs, on either side of the river. The waters are deep
and quiet, but the swallows are swift and noisy enough, sweeping by in
their curved paths through the air or chattering from the rocks, while
the young ones stretch their little heads on naked necks through the
doorways of their mud houses and clamor for food. They are a noisy
people. We call this Swallow Canyon.

Still down the river we glide until an early hour in the afternoon, when
we go into camp under a giant cottonwood standing on the right bank a
little way back from the stream. The party has succeeded in killing a
fine lot of wild ducks, and during the afternoon a mess of fish is
taken.

_June 5._--With one of the men I climb a mountain, off on the right. A
long spur, with broken ledges of rock, puts down to the river, and along
its course, or up the "hogback," as it is called, I make the ascent.
Dunn, who is climbing to the same point, is coming up the gulch. Two
hours' hard work has brought us to the summit. These mountains are all
verdure-clad; pine and cedar forests are set on green terraces;
snow-clad mountains are seen in the distance, to the west; the plains of
the upper Green stretch out before us to the north until they are lost