“Yessir,” you say, “we kept ol’ Donner Pass open all through the winter, even that bad storm in January.”

But now you couldn’t say that. You’d lost the road. “Crise-tamitey, quit jabbin’ me with that shovel-handle.”

10

That night no car went east or west. From Shasta on the north to the Tehachapis on the south, every pass was blocked with snow. Unbroken, the long Sierra thrust its peaks into the air; where the mountains rose highest and boldest against the sky-line, there the age-old battle of air and rock raged most fiercely. The snow swirled around the pinnacles; it settled deep in draw and chimney; it drifted across the ledges. From the peaks trailed off through the air the mile-long snow-banners.

Far to the north on Lassen the snow lay thick, white-blanketing the deep volcanic fires. Like black flames, the Sierra Buttes thrust skyward, too steep for snow to find lodgment. Castle Peak and Donner Peak guarded the Pass; Mt. Tallac looked down upon the tossing waters of the wide blue lake, too deep for freezing.

Southward, far southward, peak over against peak (named and nameless), ran that line of mountains. Higher and higher they rose to the south until Mt. Whitney topped them all. Peak, butte, and pinnacle; dome, ridge, and crest—over them all was snow. Snow upon the glaciers, upon the thick frozen tarns, snow over all the stunted junipers and lodge-poles that lay close along the granite at timber-line.

No longer was the air mild and gentle as when it had lain over the tropical water. Cast upward miles high, it seemed now more like some frigid influx from the Pole. Its tepid moisture had now become hard-frozen snowflakes. No longer did it move languorously; but, sucked in toward the maelstrom of the center, it swept the ledges with hurricane fury. From Lassen to Olancha, five hundred miles, against every peak and crag whirled the storm-driven snow.

ELEVENTH DAY

1

Once upon a time (to tell a fable) a primitive tribe lived beside a broad, brackish river near the ocean. This river had a disconcerting and inexplicable habit. Sometimes when the people wanted to dig clams, they found the water lapping high against the banks, and the clam-beds flooded. Sometimes when the people went to fish, they found wide mud-flats where they had expected to spear salmon.

At first the people attempted no explanation. After many generations they came to realize that a river-god, capricious and sometimes malignant, was responsible for this rise and fall. They placated the god by throwing flowers and food into the water, and now and then (when famine came) a baby.