Conditions changed while I rocked there; the clouds rose, the wind calmed, and the rain ceased to fall. Thunder occasionally rumbled, but I was completely unprepared for the blinding flash and explosive crash of the bolt that came. The violent concussion, the wave of air which spread from it like an enormous, invisible breaker, almost knocked me over. A tall fir that stood within fifty feet of me was struck, the top whirled off, and the trunk split in rails to the ground. I quickly went back to earth, for I was eager to see the full effect of the lightning's stroke on that tall, slender evergreen cone. With one wild, mighty stroke, in a second or less, the century-old tree tower was wrecked. Leaving this centenarian, I climbed up the incline a few hundred feet higher and started out through the woods to the deforested side. Though it was the last week in June, it was not long before I was hampered with snow. Ragged patches, about six feet deep, covered more than half of the forest floor. This was melting rapidly and was "rotten" from the rain, so that I quickly gave up the difficult task of fording it and made an abrupt descent until below the snow-line, where I again headed for the fire-cleared slopes. As I was leaving the wood, the storm seemed to begin all over again. The rain at first fell steadily, but soon slackened, and the lower cloud-margins began to drift through the woods. Just before reaching the barrens I paused to breathe in a place where the trees were well spaced, and found myself facing a large one with deeply furrowed bark and limbs plentifully covered with short, fat, blunt needles. I was at first puzzled to know what kind it was, but at last I recognized it as a Douglas fir or "Oregon pine." I had never before seen this species at so great an altitude,--approximately ten thousand feet. It was a long distance from home, but it stood so contentedly in the quiet rain that I half expected to hear it remark, "The traditions of my family are mostly associated with gray, growing days of this kind." Out on the barren slopes the few widely scattered, fire-killed, fire-preserved trees with broken arms stood partly concealed and lonely in the mists. After zigzagging for a time over the ruins, I concluded to go at once to the uppermost side and thence down to the forks. But the rain was again falling, and the clouds were so low and heavy that the standing skeleton trees could not be seen unless one was within touching distance. There was no wind or lightning, only a warm, steady rain. It was, in fact, so comfortable that I sat down to enjoy it until a slackening should enable me better to see the things I most wanted to observe.