The hills fall into a certain order, serried rank on rank. Deciduous growth of the lower slopes gives way to redwoods and Shasta fir. Miles upon miles of them stand so thick that when one dies it does not fall but remains erect in the arms of its brothers. Great columnar boles rise out of the river-basins, soaring high over what, except for their dwarfing proportions, would be a considerable grove of graceful oak and bay and glistening, magnolia-leafed, crimson-shafted madroño. Over these the redwoods rise, as over the heads of worshippers the clustered columns of Milan seek the dome. High up the tops are caught in a froth of pale-green foliage through which the sunlight filters blue. This characteristic refraction from their yellowish, inch-long needles dwells about the redwood as an aura, and far on the horizon distinguishes their ranks from the hill-slopes masked with pines. So, blue ridge on ridge, they advance on the imperious height of Shasta. [Illustration: DONNER LAKE, ON THE OLD EMIGRANT TRAIL] Shasta is a brother of Fuji and Tacoma, one of those solitary crater peaks whose whiteness is the honourable age of fiery youth, a good mountain dead and gone to heaven. Do not go up on it; you will see a great deal more of what you have seen, wooded hills on hills and perhaps the sapphire belt of the sea, the glitter of lovely, sail-less lakes, but you will not understand it any better, for Shasta has no more to do with the abutting ranges than a great genius with the stock which produced him. This is a prophet among mountains, a vent from the burning heart of creation. One is not surprised to learn that the Indians hereabout count their descent from the Spirit of Shasta and the Grizzly Bear. That dark belt of forest circling the mountain's base looks to be the proper haunt for him, the lumbering, little-eyed embodiment of brute creation. It is well to think of those two things together, the rip of those mighty claws with a ton or two of brute bulk behind them, and the awful witness towering to the blue, and suffer the soul-satisfying fear that lies in wait for man in the great places of the earth. All our modern fears are mean, fears of the common opinion and the bill collector. Shasta will have done its best for you if it enables you to quake in the very marrow of consciousness. After this it is well to turn southward along the Coast Range, camping by the trout-abounding rivers, losing yourself in the stiff laurels and azaleas of Mendocino, fishing at the clear lakes cupped in the hollows. If the season is right there will be salmon running in Klamath and Trinity rivers or deer in the steep-sided cañons. And everywhere there will be the redwoods. It is not, however, in the crowds that the tree reveals itself. Far down the deforested hills of Sonoma, in isolated groves, in small groups or singles on the tops of bossy, brass-coloured hills, it takes on character and charm.