The mountain breezes from the distant summit swept down upon its flimsy structure, shook the great glass windows as with a strong hand, and sent the balm of bay and spruce through every chink and cranny.

In the great hall and corridors the carpets billowed with the intruding blast along the floors; there was the murmur of the pines in the passages, and the damp odor of leaves in the dining-room.

There was the cry of night birds in the creaking cupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom windows.

Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the stolid wooden statues, or, bolder, scampered the whole length of the great veranda.

In the lulling of the wind the breath of the woods was everywhere; even the aroma of swelling sap--as if the ghastly stumps on the deforested slope behind the hotel were bleeding afresh in the dewless night--stung the eyes and nostrils of the sleepers.
It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker was awakened suddenly by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him, crying, "Mamma! mamma!" Taking the child in his arms, he comforted him, saying she would come that morning, and showed him the faint dawn already veiling with color the ghostly pallor of the Sierras.