Post 23978
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The long ice-ages of the earth appear to have their sway, go, and return. These alternate with long climatic periods made up of the short winters and the other changing seasons such as we know. The glacier lake is slowly created, but an avalanche may blot it out the day after it is completed. Other lakes more favorably situated may live on for thousands of years. But every one must eventually pass away. These lakes come into existence, have a period of youth, maturity, and declining years; then they are gone forever. They are covered over with verdure–covered with beauty–and forgotten.
Our stage in the San Juan Mountains had just gained the top of the grade when an alert, riderless pony trotted into view on a near-by ridge. Saddled and bridled, she was returning home down a zigzag trail after carrying a rider to a mine up the mountain-side. One look at this trim, spirited “return horse” from across a narrow gorge, and she disappeared behind a cliff.
A moment later she rounded a point of rocks and came down into the road on a gallop. The stage met her in a narrow place. Indifferent to the wild gorge below, she paused unflinchingly on the rim as the brushing stage dashed by. She was a beautiful bay pony.