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A WILD GARDEN IN THE WONDF.RI.ANI)
On t!r i Boundary-Line of the Rocky Mountain National Park

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COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY ENOS A. MILLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published April 1Q15

<5eot££ ^ovace Borimev

(preface

Colorado has one thousand peaks that rise
more than two miles into the sky. About
one hundred and fifty of these reach up beyond
thirteen thousand feet in altitude. There are
more than twice as many peaks of fourteen
thousand feet in Colorado as in all the other
States of the Union. An enormous area is en-
tirely above the limits of tree-growth; but these
heights above the timber-line are far from being
barren and lifeless. Covering these mountains
with robes of beauty are forests, lakes, mead-
ows, brilliant flowers, moorlands, and vine-like
streams that cling to the very summits. This
entire mountain realm is delightfully rich in
plant and animal life, from the lowest meadows
to the summits of the highest peaks.

Each year the State is colored with more than
three thousand varieties of wild flowers, cheered
by more than four hundred species of birds, and
enlivened with a numerous array of other wild

vii

(preface

life. Well has it been called the "Playground
of America." It is an enormous and splendid
hanging wild garden.

This mountain State of the Union has al-
ways appealed to the imagination and has
called forth many graphic expressions. Thus
Colorado sought statehood from Congress under
the name of Tahosa, — " Dwellers of the Moun-
tain-Tops." Even more of poetic suggestive-
ness has the name given by an invading Indian
tribe to the Arapahoes of the Continental Divide,
— "Men of the Blue Sky."

I have visited on foot every part of Colo-
rado and have made scores of happy excursions
through these mountains. These outings were in
every season of the year and they brought me
into contact with the wild life of the heights in
every kind of weather. High peaks by the score
have been climbed and hundreds of miles cov-
ered on snowshoes. I have even followed the
trail by night, and by moonlight have enjoyed
the solemn forests, the silent lakes, the white
cascades, and the summits of the high peaks.

The greater part of this book deals with na-
viii

(preface

ture and with my own experiences in the Rocky
Mountains of Colorado. Some of the chapters
in slightly different form have been printed in
various publications. The Saturday Evening
Post published "The Grizzly Bear," "Wild
Folk of the Mountain-Summits," "Wild Moun-
tain Sheep," "Associating with Snow-Slides, "
"The Forest Frontier," "Bringing back the For-
est, " and "Going to the Top." Country Life in
America published "A Mountain Pony"; The
Youth's Companion, "Some Forest History";
Recreation, "Drought in Beaver World"; and
Our Dumb Animals, "My Chipmunk Callers."
The editors of these publications have kindly
consented to the publishing of these papers in

this volume.

E. A. M.

Long's Peak, Estes Park, Colorado,
January, 191 5.

Contents

Going to the Top I

Wild Mountain Sheep 21

The Forest Frontier 47

The Chinook Wind 67

Associating with Snow-Slides . ... . .77

Wild Folk of the Mountain-Summits .... 99

Some Forest History 123

Mountain Lakes 147

A Mountain Pony 167

The Grizzly Bear . 185

Bringing back the Forest 209

Mountain Parks 227

Drought in Beaver World 247

In the Winter Snows 257

My Chipmunk Callers 275

xi

Contents

A Peak by the Plains 293

The Conservation of Scenery 311

The Rocky Mountain National Park . . .333
Index , 355

^ttuBtxaiiom

A Wild Garden in the Wonderland, on the Eastern
Boundary-Line of the Rocky Mountain National
Park Frontispiece

The Narr oii's, Long's Peak Trail 14

A Wild Mountain Sheep 4°

The Way of the Wind at Timber-Line ... 52

A Timber-Line Lake in Northwestern Colorado . . 64

Lizard Head Peak in the San Juan Mountains . . 84
Photograph by George L. Beam.

Alpine Pastures above Timber-Line, near Specimen
Mountain in the Rocky Mountain National Park . 104
Photograph by John K. Sherman.

A t the Edge of the Arctic-Alpine Life Zone in the San

Juan Mountains 116

Photograph by George L. Beam.

A Western Yellow Pine 126

Crystal Lake; a Typical Glacier Lake ... . .15°

Trapper s Lake 158

Cricket, the Return Horse, at the Summit of the Pass 172

xiii

limitations

Looking Eastward from Lizard Head . . . .180

Overgrown Cones in the Heart of a Lodge-Pole Pine . 222
Photograph by Herbert W. Gleason.

A Mountain Park in the San Juan Mountains . 230

Capitol Peak and Snow Mass Mountain from Galena
Park, Colorado ' 242

Photograph by L. C. McClure, Denver.

A Deer in Deep Snow, Rocky Mountain National Park 260

Entertaining a Chipmunk Caller 278

Photograph by Frank C. Ervin.

Pike's Peak from the Top of Cascade Canon . . 296
Photograph by Photo-Craft Shop, Colorado Springs.

The Continental Divide near Estes Park . . .314

Long's Peak from Loch Vale 322

Photograph by George C. Barnard.

Map of the Rocky Mountain National Park . . . 336

Estes Park Entrance to the Rocky Mountain Na-
tional Park 34°

Photograph by Mrs. M. K. Sherman.

The Fall River Road across the Continental Divide in
the Rocky Mountain National Park .... 344
Photograph by W. T. Parke.

Except as otherwise noted the illustrations are
from photographs by the author.

45oin<5 to t%t £op

d3oitt<5 to tfyt £op

-^J^he seven football-players who engaged me
^W' to guide them to the top of Long's Peak
did not reveal their identity until we were on
the way. Long's Peak, high, massive, and wildly
rugged, is the king of the Rocky Mountains,
and there were five thousand feet of altitude
and seven steeply inclined miles between our
starting-point and the granite-piled summit.

We set out on foot. The climbers yelled,
threw stones, and wrestled. They were so oc-
cupied with themselves during the first mile
that I managed to keep them from running over
me. Presently they discovered me and gave a
cheer, and then proceeded energetically with
the evident intention of killing me off.

It was fortunate for me that the experience
of more than a hundred guiding trips to the
summit was a part of my equipment. In ad-
dition to the valuable lessons that had been
dearly learned in guiding, I had made dozens of

3

trips to the summit before offering my services
as guide. I had made climbs in every kind of
weather to familiarize myself thoroughly with
the way to the top. These trips — always
alone — were first made on clear days, then on
stormy ones, and finally at night. When I was
satisfied that I could find the trail under the
worst conditions, endurance tests were made.
One of these consisted in making a quick round
trip, then, after only a few minutes' rest,
shouldering thirty or forty pounds of supplies
and hastening to the rescue of an imaginary
climber ill on the summit.

Besides two seasons of this preliminary ex-
perience, the rocks, glacial records, birds, trees,
and flowers along the trail were studied, other
peaks climbed, and books concerning moun-
tain-climbing diligently read. But long before
my two hundred and fifty-seven guiding trips
were completed, I found myself ignorant of one
of the most important factors in guiding, and
perhaps, too, in life, — and that is human
nature.

Several climbs had been made simply to learn

4

(Boing to tfyt Cop

the swiftest pace I could maintain from bottom
to summit without a rest. Thus ably coached
by experience, I steadied to the work when my
noisy football-players started to run away from
me. Each player in turn briefly set a hot pace,
and in a short time they were ahead of me.
Even though they guyed me unmercifully, I
refused to be hurried and held to the swiftest
pace that I knew could be maintained. Two
hours raised us through thirty-five hundred
feet of altitude and advanced us five miles. We
were above the timber-line, and, though some
distance behind the boys, I could tell they were
tiring. Presently the guide was again in the
lead!

By-and-by one of the boys began to pale,
and presently he turned green around the
mouth. He tried desperately to bluff it off, but
ill he was. In a few minutes he had to quit,
overcome with nausea. A moment later another
long-haired brave tumbled down. On the others
went, but three more were dropped along the
trail, and only two of those husk}-, well-trained
athletes reached the summit! That evening,

5

(Roc8j> (piounfain TUontorfanb

when those sad fellows saw me start off to
guide another party up by moonlight, they con-
cluded that I must be a wonder; but as a matter
of fact, being an invalid, I had learned some-
thing of conservation. This experience fixed in
my mind the importance of climbing slowly.

Hurriedly climbing a rugged peak is a dan-
gerous pastime. Trail hurry frequently produces
sickness. A brief dash may keep a climber agi-
tated for an hour. During this time he will waste
his strength doing things the wrong way, — often,
too, annoying or endangering the others.

Finding a way to get climbers to go slowly
was a problem that took me time to solve. Early
in the guiding game the solution was made im-
possible by trying to guide large parties and by
not knowing human nature. Once accomplished,
slow going on the trail noticeably decreased the
cases of mountain-sickness, greatly reduced the
number of quarrels, and enabled almost all
starters to gain the height desired. Slow climb-
ing added pleasure to the trip and enabled
every one to return in good form and with
splendid pictures in his mind.

6

(Botng to t$t Cop

To keep the party together, — for the tend-
ency of climbers is to scatter, some traveling
rapidly and others slowly, — it became my
practice to stop occasionally and tell a story,
comment on a bit of scenery, or relate an inci-
dent that had occurred near by. As I spoke in
a low tone, the climbers ahead shouting "Hurry
up!" and the ones behind calling "Wait!"
could not hear me. This method kept down
friction and usually held the party together.
With a large party, however, confusion some-
times arose despite my efforts to anticipate
it.

Hoping to get valuable climbing suggestions,
I told my experiences one day to a gentleman
who I thought might help me; but he simply re-
peated the remark of Trampas that in every
party of six there is a fool! It is almost impos-
sible for a numerous party, even though every
one of them may be well-meaning, to travel
along a steep trail without friction.

My most unpleasant climb was with a fateful
six, — three loving young couples. Two college
professors about to be married formed one of the

7

(Rocfy) QUounfoin T2?onber(an*>

couples. He, the son of wealthy parents, had
been sent West to mend his health and man-
ners; he met a young school-ma'am who re-
formed him. They attended the same college
and became professors in a State school. They
were to be married at the end of this outing;
but on this climb they quarreled. Each married
another! Sweethearts for years was the story
of the second couple. They, too, quarreled on
the trail, but made up again. The story of the
third couple is interestingly complicated. He
was rich, young, and impetuous; she, hand-
some and musical. For years she had received
his ardent attentions indifferently. As we ap-
proached the top of the peak, he became ex-
tremely impatient with her. As though to make
confusion worse confounded, after years of in-
difference the young lady became infatuated
with her escort. He tried to avoid her, but she
feigned a sprained ankle to insure his comfort-
ing closeness. They are both single to this day.
Meantime the six had a general row among
themselves, and at the close of it united to
"roast" me! Whether imp or altitude was to

(Boing to t$t Cop

blame for this deviltry matters not; the guide
had to suffer for it.

Early in guiding I conceived it to be my duty
to start for the top with any one who cared to
try it, and I felt bound also to get the climber
to the top if possible. This was poor theory and
bad practice. After a few exasperating and
exhausting experiences I learned the folly of
dragging people to the top who were likely to
be too weak to come back. One day a party
of four went up. Not one of them was accus-
tomed to walking, and all had apparently lived
to eat. After eight hard hours we reached the
summit, where all four collapsed. A storm came
on, and we were just leaving the top when day-
light faded. It rained at intervals all night long,
with the temperature a trifle below freezing.
We would climb down a short distance, then
huddle shivering together for a while. At times
every one wTas suffering from nausea. We got
down to timber-line at one o'clock in the morn-
ing. Here a rest by a rousing camp-fire enabled
all to go on down. We arrived at the starting-
place just twenty-four hours after we had left it !

9

(Roc8j> QUounfain TUontorfanb

Mountain-climbing is not a good line of activ-
ity for an invalid or for one who shies at the
edge of a precipice, or for any one, either, who
worries over the possible fate of his family while
he is on a narrow ledge. Altitude, the great
bugbear to many, is the scapegoat for a mul-
titude of sins. ''Feeling the altitude" would
often be more correctly expressed as feeling the
effects of high living! The ill effects of altitude
are mostly imaginary. True, climbing high into
a brighter, finer atmosphere diminishes the
elastic clasp — the pressure of the air — and
causes physiological changes. These usually
are beneficial. Climbers who become ill through
mountain-climbing would also become ill in hill-
climbing. In the overwhelming number of cases
the lowland visitor is permanently benefited by
a visit to the mountains and especially by a
climb in the heights.

Mountain-sickness, with its nausea, first
comes to those who are bilious, or to those who
are hurrying or exerting themselves more than
usual. A slight stomach disorder invites this
nausea, and on the heights those who have not

10

(Boing to i$t £op

been careful of diet, or those who celebrated the
climb the evening before it was made, are pretty
certain to find out just how mountain-sickness
afflicts. Altitude has, I think, but little to do
with bringing on so-called mountain-sickness.
It is almost identical with sea-sickness, and just
as quickly forces the conclusion that life is not
worth living! Usually a hot drink, rest, and
warmth will cure it in a short time.

Clarence King in his "Mountaineering in the
Sierra Nevada" says concerning the effects of
altitude, "All the while I made my instrumental
observations the fascination of the view so held
me that I felt no surprise at seeing water boiling
over our little faggot blaze at a temperature of
one hundred and ninety-two degrees F., nor
in observing the barometrical column stand at
17.99 inches; and it was not till a week or so
after that I realized we had felt none of the con-
ventional sensations of nausea, headache, and
I don't know what all, that people are supposed
to suffer at extreme altitudes; but these things
go with guides and porters, I believe."

Altitude commonly stimulates the slow tongue,

11

(Jtocfig (Mountain Tftonberfanb

and in the heights many reserved people be-
come talkative and even confiding. This, along
with the natural sociability of such a trip, the
scenery, and the many excitements, usually
ripens acquaintances with amazing rapidity.
Lifelong friendships have commenced on the
trail, and many a lovely romance, too. One day
two young people met for the first time in one
of my climbing parties. Thirty days afterward
they were married, and they have lived happily
to date.

In one climb a chaperon gave out and
promptly demanded that two young sweet-
hearts turn back. As we moved on without the
chaperon, she called down upon my head the
curses of all the gods at once! In order to save
the day it is sometimes necessary for the guide
to become an autocrat. Occasionally a climber
is not susceptible to suggestion and will obey
only the imperative mood. A guide is some-
times compelled to stop rock-rolling, or to say
"No!" to a plucky but sick climber who is
eager to go on. A terrible tongue-lashing came
to me one day from a young lady because of my

12

(Botng to t$t £op

refusal to go farther after she had fainted. She
went forward alone for half an hour while I sat
watching from a commanding crag. Presently
she came to a narrow unbanistered ledge that
overhung eternity. She at once retreated and
came back with a smile, saying that the spot
where she had turned back would enable any
one to comprehend the laws of falling bodies.

Occasionally a climber became hysterical and
I had my hands full keeping the afflicted within
bounds. Mountain ledges are not good places
for hysterical performances. One day, when a
reverend gentleman and his two daughters were
nearing the top, the young ladies and myself
came out upon the Narrows a few lengths ahead
of their father. The ladies were almost ex-
hausted and were climbing on sheer nerve. The
stupendous view revealed from the Narrows
overwhelmed them, and both became hysterical
at once. It was no place for ceremony; and as
it was rather cramped for two performances at
once, I pushed the feet from beneath one young
lady, tripped the other on top of her, — and sat
down on both! They struggled, laughed, and

13

(gocRg (mountain T&on&ttfonb

cried, and had just calmed down when the father
came round the rocks upon us. His face vividly
and swiftly expressed three or four kinds of
anger before he grasped the situation. Fearing
that he might jump on me in turn, or that he
might "get them" too, I watched him without
a word. Finally he took in the entire situation,
and said with a smile, "Well, I don't know
whether it's my move or not!"

Twice, while guiding, I broke my lifelong rule
never to take a tip. One tip had with it a sur-
prise to redeem the taking. It came from the
gentleman who had organized the party. On
the way up he begged leave to set the pace and
to lead the party to the top. He appeared sensi-
ble, but I made a blunder by consenting to the
arrangement, for his pace was too rapid, and
at Keyhole he was attacked by nausea. He
pluckily insisted that we go on to the summit
and leave him behind. It was five hours before
we returned to him. For two hours he had lain
helpless in a cold rain and was badly chilled.
He was so limp and loose-jointed that it was
difficult to carry him across the moraine called

14

k.

Ml I

V) .'" /

mm

THE NARROWS, LONG'S PEAK TRAIL

(Figures of climbers can be made out on the trail)

(Boing to tfyt £op

Boulderfield. At the Inn the following morning
he was completely restored. I was still so ex-
hausted from getting him down that when he
insisted that he be allowed to give me a tip in
addition to the guiding fee I agreed to accept
it. The instant I had consented it occurred to
me that a tip from a millionaire for the saving
of his life would be worth while. I was startled
when, with a satisfied expression, he handed
me twenty-five cents!

Early one season, before the ice had melted,
one of my five climbers met with an accident
in one of the most dangerous places along the
way. We were descending, and I was in front,
watching each one closely as he crossed a nar-
row and extremely steep tongue of ice. The
gentleman who brought up the rear was a good
climber when not talking; but this time he was
chattering away and failed to notice me when
I signaled him for silence while each climber,
in turn, carefully crossed the steep ice in the
footholds chopped for that purpose. Still talk-
ing, he stepped out on the ice without looking
and missed the foothold! Both feet shot from

i5

(RocRj) (piounfain T27onbetfanb

beneath him, and down the smooth, deadly
steep he plunged.

Early in guiding I had considered the danger-
ous places and planned just where to stand while
the climbers passed them and just what to do in
case of accident. When an accident actually
occurred, it was a simple matter to go through a
ticklish grand-stand performance that had been
practiced dozens of times, and which for years
I had been ready to put into effect. The instant
he slipped, I made a quick leap for a point of
rock that barely pierced the steep ice-tongue.
This ice was steeper than half pitch. He shot
down, clawing desperately and helplessly, with
momentum sufficient to knock over half a dozen
men. There was just time to grab him by the
coat as he shot by the rock. Bracing with all
my might to hold him for a fraction of a second
so as to divert him and point him at an angle
off the ice, I jumped upward as the violent jerk
came. We went off as it were on a tangent, and
landed in a heap upon the stones, several yards
below the spot from which I had leaped to the
rescue. His life was saved.

16

(Boing to t$t £op

The last season of my guiding career was a full
one. Thirty-two ascents were made during the
thirty-one days of August. Half a dozen of these
were by moonlight. In addition to these climbs
a daily round trip was made to Estes Park,
eight miles distant and fifteen hundred feet
down the mountain. These Estes Park trips
commonly were made on horseback, though a
few were by wagon. My busiest day was
crowded with two wagon trips and one horse-
back trip to Estes Park, then a moonlight climb
to the summit. In a sixty-hour stretch I did
not have any sleep or take any food. Being
in condition for the work and doing it easily,
I was in excellent shape when the guiding
ended.

The happiest one of my two hundred and
fifty-seven guiding experiences on the rugged
granite trail of this peak was with Harriet
Peters, a little eight-year-old girl, the youngest
child who has made the climb. She was alert and
obedient, enjoyed the experience, and reached
the top without a slip or a stumble, and with
but little assistance from me. It was pleasant

17

(Rocfty (Mountain Ti?onberfcmb

to be with her on the summit, listening to her
comments and hearing her childlike questions.
I have told the whole story of this climb in
"Wild Life on the Rockies."

Thoughtfulness and deliberation are essen-
tials of mountain-climbing. Climb slowly.
Look before stepping. Ease down off boulders;
a jump may jar or sprain. Enjoy the scenery
and do most of your talking while at rest. Think
of the fellow lower down. A careful diet and
training beforehand will make the climb easier
and far more enjoyable.

Tyndall has said that a few days of moun-
tain-climbing will burn all the effete matter
out of the system. In climbing, the stagnant
blood is circulated and refined, the lungs are ex-
ercised, every cell is cleansed, and all parts are
disinfected by the pure air. Climbing a high
peak occasionally will not only postpone death
but will give continuous intensity to the joy of
living. Every one might well climb at least one
high peak, and for those leaving high school or
college, the post-graduate work of climbing a
rugged peak might be a more informative ex-

18

(Botng to t$t £op

perience or a more helpful test for living than
any examination or the writing of a thesis.

Scenery, like music, is thought-compelling
and gives one a rare combination of practical
and poetical inspiration. Along with moun-
tain-climbing, scenery shakes us free from our-
selves and the world. From new grand heights
one often has the strange feeling that he has
looked upon these wondrous scenes before; and
on the crest one realizes the full meaning of
John Muir's exhortation to "climb the moun-
tains and get their good tidings!"

T3?ift> (mountain ^fytep

TOfb (lUouttMn Mfyty

One day in Glacier Gorge, Colorado, I was
astonished to see a number of sheep start
to descend the precipitous eastern face of
Thatch-Top Mountain. This glaciated wall,
only a few degrees off the perpendicular, rises
comparatively smooth for several hundred feet.
Down they came, slowly, with absolute com-
posure, over places I dared not even try to de-
scend. The nearness of the sheep and the use
of field-glasses gave me excellent views of the
many ways in which they actually seemed to
court danger.

It is intensely thrilling to watch a leaping
exhibition of one of these heavy, agile, alert,
and athletic animals. Down precipitous places
he plunges head foremost, turning and check-
ing himself as he descends by striking his feet
against walls and projections — perhaps a
dozen times — before alighting on a ledge for

23

(Roc6j> (THounfain T3?onberfan&

a full stop. From this he walks overboard and
repeats the wild performance!

Wild mountain sheep are perhaps the most
accomplished and dare-devil acrobats in the
animal world. They are indifferent to the depths
beneath as they go merrily along canon-walls.
The chamois and the wild mountain goat may
equal them in climbing among the crags and
peaks, but in descending dizzy precipices and
sheer walls the bighorn sheep are unrivaled.
When sheep hurriedly descend a precipice, the
laws of falling bodies are given a most spectac-
ular display, and the possibilities of friction and
adhesion are tested to the utmost.

A heavily horned ram led the way down
Thatch-Top. He was followed by two young
rams and a number of ewes, with two small lambs
in the rear. They were in single file, each well
separated from the others. Down this frightful
wall the lambs appeared to be going to certain
death. At times they all followed the contour
round small spurs or in niches. In places, from
my point of view they appeared to be flattened
against the wall and descending head foremost.

24

Ttftfo (mountain £$eq>

There was one long pitch that offered noth-
ing on which to stand and no place on which to
stop. Down this the old ram plunged with a
series of bouncing drops and jumps, — falling
under control, with his fall broken, checked,
and directed, without stopping, by striking with
the feet as frequently as was necessary. First
came three or four straightforward bouncing
dives, followed by a number of swift zigzag
jumps, striking alternately right and left, then
three or four darts to the right before again
flying off to the left. At last he struck on a wide
ledge, where he pulled up and stopped with
masterly resistance and stiff-legged jumps!
Mind controlled matter! This specialty of the
sheep requires keen eyesight, instant decision,
excellent judgment, a marvelous nicety in
measuring distances, and a complete forgetful-
ness of peril. Each ewe in turn gave a simi-
lar and equally striking exhibition; while the
lambs, instead of breaking their necks in the
play of drop and bounce, did not appear to be
even cautious. They showed off by dropping
farther and going faster than the old o.nes!

25

This was sheer frolic for these children of the
crags.

Down a vertical gulley — a giant chimney
with one side out — they went hippety-hop
from side to side, and at the bottom, without
a stop, dropped fifteen feet to a wide bench
below. The ram simply dived off, with front
feet thrust forward and with hind feet drawn up
and forward, and apparently struck with all
four feet at once. A number of others followed
in such rapid succession that they appeared to
be falling out of the air. Each, however, made
it a point to land to the right or the left of the
one it was following. Two ewes turned broad-
side to the wall as they went over and dropped
vertically, — stiff-legged, back horizontal, and
with head held well up. The lambs leaped over-
board simultaneously only a second behind the
rear ewe, each lamb coming to a stop with the
elastic bounce of youth.

Beneath this bench where all had paused, the
wall was perilously steep for perhaps one hun-
dred feet. A moment after the lambs landed,
the ram followed the bench round the wall for

26

several yards, then began to descend the steep
wall by tacking back and forth on broken and
extremely narrow ledges, with many footholds
barely two inches wide. He was well down,
when he missed his footing and fell. He tumbled
outward, turned completely over, and, after a
fall of about twenty feet, struck the wall glan-
cingly, at the same time thrusting his feet against
it as though trying to right himself. A patch of
hair — and perhaps skin — was left clinging to
the wall. A few yards below this, while falling
almost head first, he struck a slope with all four
feet and bounded wildly outward, but with
checked speed. He dropped on a ledge, where
with the utmost effort he regained control of him-
self and stopped, with three or four stiff plunges
and a slide. From there he trotted over easy
ways and moderate slopes to the bottom, where
he stood a while trembling, then lay down.

One by one his flock came down in good
order. The leaps of flying squirrels and the
clever gymnastic pranks of monkeys are tame
shows compared with the wild feats of these
masters of the crags.

27

(Rocfip QWounfatn TUonfcerfanb

The flock, after playing and feeding about for
an hour or more, started to return. The in-
jured leader lay quietly on the grass, but with
head held bravely erect. The two lambs raced
ahead and started to climb the precipice over
the route they had come down. One ewe went
to the bottom of the wall, then turned to look
at the big-horned leader who lay still upon the
grass. She waited. The lambs, plainly eager
to go on up, also waited. Presently the ram
rose with an effort and limped heavily away.
There was blood on his side. He turned aside
from the precipice and led the way back toward
the top by long easy slopes. The flock slowly
followed. The lambs looked at each other and
hesitated for some time. Finally they leaped
down and raced rompingly after the others.

The massive horns of the rams, along with
the audacious dives that sheep sometimes make
on precipices, probably suggested the story that
sheep jump off a cliff and effectively break the
shock of the fall by landing on their horns at
the bottom! John Charles Fremont appears to
have started this story in print. Though sheep

28

TDith (mountain gfyttp

do not alight on their horns, this story is still
in circulation and is too widely believed. Every
one with whom I have talked who has seen
sheep land after a leap says that the sheep land
upon their feet. I have seen this performance
a number of times, and on a few occasions there
were several sheep ; and each and all came down
feet first. Incidentally I have seen two rams
come down a precipice and strike on their horns;
but they did not rise again ! The small horns of
the ewes would offer no shock-breaking resist-
ance if alighted upon; yet the ewes rival the
rams in making precipitous plunges.

The sheep is the only animal that has cir-
cling horns. In rams these rise from the top of
the head and grow upward, outward, and back-
ward, then curve downward and forward. Com-
monly the circle is complete in four or five
years. This circular tendency varies with
locality. In mature rams the horns are from
twenty to forty inches long, measured round
the curve, and have a basic circumference of
twelve to eighteen inches. The largest horn I
ever measured was at the base nineteen and a

29

(Rocfy) (tttounfain TUontorfonb

half inches in circumference. This was of the
Colorado bighorn species, and at the time of
measurement the owner had been dead about
two months. The horns of the ewes are small,
and extend upward, pointing slightly outward
and backward.

The wildest leap I ever saw a sheep take was
made in the Rocky Mountains a few miles
northwest of Long's Peak. In climbing down
a precipice I rounded a point near the bottom
and came upon a ram at the end of the ledge I
was following. Evidently he had been lying
down, looking upon the scenes below. The
ledge was narrow and it ended just behind the
ram, who faced me only five or six feet away.
He stamped angrily, struck an attitude of fight,
and shook his head as if to say, "I've half a
mind to butt you overboard!" He could have
butted an ox overboard. My plan was to fling
myself beneath a slight overhang of wall on the
narrow ledge between us if he made a move.

While retreating backward along almost
nothing of a ledge and considering the wisdom
of keeping my eyes on the ram, he moved, and

30

1Wft> (mountain £$eep

I flung myself beneath the few inches of pro-
jecting wall. The ram simply made a wild leap
off the ledge.

This looked like a leap to death. He plunged
down at an angle to the wall, head forward and
a trifle lower than the rump, with feet drawn
upward and thrust forward. I looked over the
edge, hoping he was making a record jump.
The first place he struck was more than twenty
feet below me. When the fore feet struck, his
shoulder blades jammed upward as though they
would burst through the skin. A fraction of a
second later his hind feet also struck and his
back sagged violently; his belly must have
scraped the slope. He bounded upward and
outward like a heavy chunk of rubber. This
contact had checked his deadly drop and his
second striking-place was on a steeply inclined
buttress; apparently in his momentary contact
with this he altered his course with a kicking
action of the feet.

There was lightning-like foot action, and
from this striking-place he veered off and came
down violently, feet first, upon a shelf of

3i

(Roc&}> (ttlounf ain JDonUxtarti

granite. With a splendid show of physical
power, and with desperate effort, he got him-
self to a stand with stiff-legged, sliding bounds
along the shelf. Here he paused for a second,
then stepped out of sight behind a rock point.
Feeling that he must be crippled, I hurriedly
scrambled up and out on a promontory from
which to look down upon him. He was trot-
ting down a slope without even the sign of a
limp!

Sheep do sometimes slip, misjudge a dis-
tance, and fall. Usually a bad bruise, a wrenched
joint, or a split hoof is the worst injury, though
now and then one receives broken legs or ribs,
or even a broken neck. Most accidents appear
to befall them while they are fleeing through
territory with which they are unacquainted.
In strange places they are likely to have trouble
with loose stones, or they may be compelled to
leap without knowing the nature of the land-
ing-place.

A sheep, like a rabbit or a fox, does his great-
est work in evading pursuers in territory with
which he is intimately acquainted. If closely

32

T£ift> (mountain |$eep

pursued in his own territory, he will flee at high
speed up or down a precipice, perform seem-
ingly impossible feats, and triumphantly escape.
But no matter how skillful, if he goes his ut-
most in a new territory, he is as likely to come
to grief as an orator who attempts to talk on a
subject with which he is not well acquainted.
It is probable that most of the accidents to
these masters of the crags occur when they are
making a desperate retreat through strange
precipitous territory.

In the Elk Mountains a flock of sheep were
driven far from their stamping-ground and while
in a strange country were fired upon and pur-
sued by hunters. They fled up a peak they had
not before climbed. The leader leaped upon a
rock that gave way. He tumbled off with the
rock on top. He fell upon his back — to rise no
more. A ewe missed her footing and in her fall
knocked two others over to their death, though
she regained her footing and escaped.

One day a ram appeared on a near-by sky-
line and crossed along the top of a shattered
knife-edge of granite. The gale had driven me

33

(£oc6g QUounfain TPontotfanfc

to shelter, but along he went, unmindful of the
gale that was ripping along the crags and knock-
ing things right and left. Occasionally he made
a long leap from point to point. Now and then
he paused to look into the canon far below. On
the top of the highest pinnacle he stopped and
became a splendid statue. Presently he rounded
a spur within fifty feet of me and commenced
climbing diagonally up a wall that appeared
almost vertical and smooth. My glass showed
that he was walking along a mere crack in the
rock, where footholds existed mostly in im-
agination. On this place he would stop and
scratch with one hind foot and then rub the end
of a horn against the wall!

As he went on up, the appearance was like
a stage effect, as though he were sustained by
wires. At the end of the crack he reared,
hooked his fore feet over a rough point, and
drew himself up like an athlete, with utter in-
difference to the two hundred feet of drop be-
neath him. From this point he tacked back and
forth until he had ascended to the bottom of a
vertical gully, which he easily mastered with

34

TWto (mountain £0eep

a series of zigzag jumps. In some of these he
leaped several feet almost horizontally to gain
a few inches vertically. Occasionally he leaped
up and struck with his feet in a place where he
could not stand, but from which he leaped to a
place more roomy. His feet slipped as he landed
from one high jump; instantly he pushed him-
self off backward and came down feet foremost
on the narrow place from which he had just
leaped. He tried again and succeeded.

The edges of sheep's hoofs are hard, while the
back part of the bottom is a rubbery, gristly
pad, which holds well on smooth, steep sur-
faces. Cooperating with these excellent feet
are strong muscles, good eyes, and keen wits.

Wild sheep are much larger than tame ones.
They are alert, resourceful, and full of energy.
Among the Colorado bighorns the rams are
from thirty-eight to forty-two inches high, and
weigh from two hundred to three hundred and
fifty pounds. The ewes are a third smaller.
The common color is grayish brown, with under
parts and inside of the legs white. In the north
there is one pure-white species, while on neigh-

35

(Rocfy) (piounfain TUonbttfcmb

boring ranges there is a black species. Though
wild sheep usually follow a leader, each one is
capable of independent action. Tame sheep are
stupid and silly; wild sheep are wide-awake and
courageous. Tame sheep are dirty and smelly,
while wild sheep are as well-groomed and clean
as the cliffs among which they live.

In discussing wild life many people fail to
discriminate between the wild sheep and the
wild goats. The goat has back-curving spike
horns and a beard that makes the face every
inch a goat's. Though of unshapely body and
awkward gait, his ungainliness intensified by
his long hair, the goat is a most skillful climber.
The sheep excel him for speed, grace, and, per-
haps, alertness.

It is believed that the three or four species of
sheep found in the wilds of America had their
origin in Asia. In appearance and habits they
bear a striking resemblance to the sheep which
now inhabit the Asiatic mountains.

Wild sheep are found in Alaska, western
Canada, and the United States west of the
Plains, and extend a short distance down into

36

TUifo (mountain $$ttp

Mexico. Most flocks in the Sierra and the
Rocky Mountains live above the timber-line and
at an altitude of twelve thousand feet. Winter
quarters in these high stamping-grounds appear
to be chosen in localities where the high winds
prevent a deep accumulation of snow. This
snow-removal decreases the danger of becoming
snowbound and usually enables the sheep to
obtain food.

Their warm, thick under covering of fine wool
protects them from the coldest blasts. During
storms the sheep commonly huddle together to
the leeward of a cliff. Sometimes they stand
thus for days and are completely drifted over.
At the close of the storm the stronger ones lead
and buck their way out through the snow.
Occasionally a few weak ones perish, and oc-
casionally, too, a mountain lion appears while
the flock is almost helpless in the snow.

Excursions from their mountain-top homes
are occasionally made into the lowlands. In the
spring they go down early for green stuff, which
comes first to the lowlands. They go to salt
licks, for a ramble, for a change of food, and for

37

(Roc% (mounfoin T3?onberfcmb

the fun of it. The duration of these excursions
may be a few hours or several days.

Most of the time the full-grown rams form
one flock; the ewes and youngsters flock by
themselves. Severe storms or harassing enemies
may briefly unite these flocks. One hundred
and forty is the largest flock I ever counted.
This was in June, on Specimen Mountain, Colo-
rado; and the sheep had apparently assembled
for the purpose of licking salty, alkaline earth
near the top of this mountain. Wild sheep ap-
pear to have an insatiable craving for salt and
will travel a day's journey to obtain it. Occa-
sionally they will cross a high, broken moun-
tain-range and repeatedly expose themselves
to danger, in order to visit a salt lick.

The young lambs, one or two at a birth, are
usually born about the first of May in the
alpine heights above timber-line. What a
wildly royal and romantic birthplace! The
strange world spreading far below and far away;
crags, snowdrifts, brilliant flowers, — a hanging
wild garden, with the ptarmigan and the rosy
finches for companions! The mother has sole

38

1Wft> (mountain gfyttp

care of the young; for several weeks she must
guard them from hungry foxes, eagles, and
lions. Once I saw an eagle swoop and strike a
lamb. Though the lamb was knocked heels over
head, the blow was not fatal. The eagle wheeled
to strike again, but the mother leaped up and
shielded the wounded lamb. Eaglets are oc-
casionally fed on young lambs, as skulls near
eagle's nests in the cliffs bear evidence.

A number of ewes and lambs one day came
close to my hiding-place. One mother had two
children; four others had one each. An active
lamb had a merry time with his mother, butting
her from every angle, rearing up on his hind
legs and striking with his head, and occasionally
leaping entirely over her. While she lay in
dreamy indifference, he practiced long jumps
over her, occasionally stopping to have a fierce
fight with an imaginary rival. Later he was
joined by another lamb, and they proceeded to
race and romp all over a cliff, while the mothers
looked on with satisfaction. Presently they all
lay down, and a number of magpies, apparently
hunting insects, walked over them.

39

(Koc6j> (Wlounfoin TUotrterfcmt)

In one of the side canons on the Colorado in
Arizona, I was for a number of days close to a
flock of wild sheep which evidently had never
before seen man. On their first view of me they
showed marked curiosity, which they satisfied
by approaching closely, two or three touching
me with their noses. Several times I walked
among the flock with no excitement on their
part. I was without either camera or gun. The
day I broke camp and moved on, one of the
ewes followed me for more than an hour.

They become intensely alert and wild when
hunted ; but in localities where they are not shot
at they quickly become semi-domestic, often
feeding near homes of friendly people. During
the winter sheep frequently come from the
heights to feed near my cabin. One day, after
a number had licked salt with my pony, a ram
which appeared as old as the hills walked boldly
by my cabin within a few feet of it, head
proudly up. After long acquaintance and many
attempts I took his photograph at five feet and
finally was allowed to feel of his great horns!

A few years ago near my cabin a ram lost his
40

TMfc (mountain £$eep

life in a barbed-wire fence. He and a number
of other rams had fed, then climbed to the top
of a small crag by the roadside. While they were
there, a man on horseback came along. Indif-
ferently they watched him approach; but when
he stopped to take a picture all but one fled
in alarm, easily leaping a shoulder-high fence.
After a minute the remaining ram became ex-
cited, dashed off to follow the others, and ran
into the fence. He was hurled backward and
one of his curved horns hooked over a wire.
Finding himself caught, he surged desperately
to tear himself free. In doing this a barb severed
the jugular vein. He fell and freed his horn from
the wire in falling. Rising, he ran for the crag
from which he had just fled, with his blood
escaping in great gushes. As he was gaining the
top of the crag he rolled over dead.

A flock which is often divided into two, one
of ewes and one of rams, lives on the summit of
Battle Mountain, at an altitude of twelve thou-
sand feet, about four miles from my cabin. I
have sometimes followed them when they were
rambling. About the middle of one Septem-

4i

ber this flock united and moved off to the
south. I made haste to climb to the top of Mt.
Meeker so as to command most of their move-
ments. I had been watching for several hours
without even a glimpse of them. Rising to
move away, I surprised them as they lay at
rest near-by, a little below the summit; and I
also surprised a lion that evidently was sneak-
ing up on them. This was close to the altitude
of fourteen thousand feet. The mountain lion
is the game-hog of the heights and is a persistent
and insidious foe of sheep. He kills both old
and young, and usually makes a capture by
sneaking up on his victim. Sometimes for hours
he lies in wait by a sheep trail.

The day following the surprise on Mt.
Meeker, this flock appeared at timber-line
about three miles to the southeast. Here some
hunters fired on it. As it fled past me, I counted,
and one of the twenty-eight was missing. The
flock spent most of the next day about Chasm
Lake, just under the northern crags of Meeker.
Before night it was back at its old stamping-
ground on Battle Mountain. Early the following

42

lX>itt> (mountain $%tt?

morning the big ram led the way slowly to the
west on the northern slope of Long's Peak, a
little above timber-line.

During the morning a grizzly came lumber-
ing up the slope, and as I thought he would
probably intercept the sheep, I awaited the
next scene with intense interest. The bear
showed no interest in the sheep, which, in turn,
were not alarmed by his approach. Within a
few yards of the flock he concluded to dig out a
fat woodchuck. The sheep, full of curiosity,
crowded near to watch this performance, —
evidently too near to suit Mr. Grizzly, who
presently caused a lively scattering with a
Woof! and a charge. The bear returned to his
digging, and the sheep proceeded quietly on
their way.

The flock went down into Glacier Gorge,
then out on the opposite side, climbing to the
summit of the Continental Divide. The fol-
lowing day another flock united with it; and
just at nightfall another, composed entirely of
ewes and lambs, was seen approaching. At day-
light the following morning the Battle Moun-

43

(RocRp (Wtounfain TUontorfanfc

tain flock was by itself and the other flocks
nowhere in sight. During the day my flock
traveled four or five miles to the north, then,
doubling back, descended Flat-Top Mountain,
and at sundown, after a day's trip of about
twenty miles and a descent from twelve thou-
sand feet to eight thousand, arrived at the Mary
Lake salt lick in Estes Park. Before noon the
following day this flock was on the Crags, about
three miles south of the lake and at an altitude
of eleven thousand feet.

Near the Crags I saw a fight between one of
the rams of this flock and one that ranged about
the Crags. The start of this was a lively push-
ing contest, head to head. At each break there
was a quick attempt to strike each other with
their horns, which was followed by goat-like
rearing and sparring. As they reared and struck,
or struck while on their hind legs, the aim was
to hit the other's nose with head or horn. Both
flocks paused, and most of the sheep intently
watched the contest.

Suddenly the contestants broke away, and
each rushed back a few yards, then wheeled

44

TT»tfb (mountain gfyttp

with a fine cutting angle and came at the other
full tilt. There was a smashing head-on col-
lision, and each was thrown upward and almost
back on his haunches by the force of the im-
pact. Instantly they wheeled and came to-
gether in a flying butt. A number of times both
walked back over the stretch over which they
rushed together. It was a contest between
battering rams on legs. Occasionally one was
knocked to his knees or was flung headlong.
The circular arena over which they fought was
not more than twenty-five feet in diameter.
In the final head-on butt the ram of the Crags
was knocked end over end; then he arose and
trotted away down the slope, while the victor,
erect and motionless as a statue, stared after
him. Both were covered with blood and dirt.
During the day the flock returned to Battle
Mountain.

The following day this flock separated into
two flocks, the youngsters and ewes in one and
the old rams in the other. At mating-time, early
in October, the flocks united, and the rams had
it out among themselves. There were repeated

45

$oc% Qttounfain Tft?on&<*fcmb

fights; sometimes two contests were in progress
at once. In the end a few rams were driven off
without mates, while three or four rams each
led off from one to five ewes.

Over the greater part of their range the wild
mountain sheep are threatened with extermina-
tion. They are shot for sport and for their flesh,
and are relentlessly hunted for their horns.
But the mountain sheep are a valuable asset
to our country. They are picturesque and an
interesting part of the scenery, an inspiration
to every one who sees them.

Says Mary Austin: —

" But the wild sheep from the battered rocks,
Sure foot and fleet of limb,
Gets up to see the stars go by
Along the mountain rim."

Fortunate is the locality that perpetuates
its mountain sheep. These courageous climbers
add much to the ancient mountains and snowy
peaks; the arctic wild gardens and the crags
would not be the same for us if these moun-
taineers were to vanish forever from the heights.

t%t §omt jfrxwttUt

"

£jk $oxtst §vontkv

^Himber-line in the high mountains of the
*CS West wakes up the most indifferent visi-
tor. The uppermost limit of tree-growth shows
nature in strange, picturesque forms, and is so
graphic and impressive that all classes of visitors
pause to look in silent wonder. This is the forest
frontier.

It appears as old as the hills and as fixed and
unchanging as they; but, like every frontier,
that of the forest is aggressive, is ever struggling
to advance. To-day this bold and definite line
is the forest's Far North, its farthest reach up
the heights; but this simply marks where the
forest is, and not where it was or where it is
striving to be. Here is the line of battle be-
tween the woods and the weather. The ele-
ments are insistent with "thus far and no
farther," but the trees do not heed, and the
relentless elements batter and defy them in a
never-ending battle along the timber-line.

49

(Roc% Qtlounfain TUonberfanb

From a commanding promontory the forest-
edge appears like a great shore-line, as it sweeps
away for miles along the steep and uneven sides
of the mountains. For the most part it follows
the contour line; here it goes far out round a
peninsula-like headland, there it sweeps away
to fold back into cove or canon and form a
forested bay. In Colorado and California this
forest-line on the mountains is at an altitude
of between eleven and twelve thousand feet.
Downward from this line a heavy robe of dark
forest drapes the mountains; above it the tree-
less heights rise cool and apparently barren, piled
with old and eroded snowdrifts amid silent moor-
lands and rocky terraces.

The trees of timber-line are stunted by cold,
crushed by snow, and distorted by prolonged
and terrific winds. Many stretches appear like
growths of coarse bushes and uncouth vines.
They maintain a perpetual battle, and, though
crippled, bent, dwarfed, and deformed, they
are stocky and strong old warriors, determined,
no weaklings, no cowards. They are crowded
together and tangled, presenting a united front.

5o

Few trees in this forest-front rise to a greater
height than twelve feet. The average height is
about eight feet, but the length of some of the
prostrate ones is not far from the normal
height. Wind and other hard conditions give
a few trees the uncouth shapes of prehistoric
animals. I measured a vine-like ichthyosaurus
that was crawling to leeward, flat upon the
earth. It was sixty-seven feet long, and close
to the roots its body was thirty-eight inches in
diameter. One cone-shaped spruce had a base
diameter of four feet and came to a point a few
inches less than four feet above the earth. Here
and there a tough, tall tree manages to stand
erect. The high wind either prevents growing
or trims off all limbs that do not point to lee-
ward. Some appear as though molded and
pressed into shape. A profile of others, with
long, streaming-bannered limbs, gives a hopeful
view, for they present an unconquerable and
conscious appearance, like tattered pennants
or torn, triumphant battle-flags of the victori-
ous forest!

The forest is incessantly aggressive and

5i

Q*oc8p (mountain tPonberfanb

eternally vigilant to hold its territory and to
advance. Winds are its most terrible and effec-
tive foe. To them is due its weird and pic-
turesque front. Occasionally they rage for days
without cessation, blowing constantly from the
same quarter and at times with the rending and
crushing velocity of more than one hundred
miles an hour. These terrific winds frequently
flay the trees with cutting blasts of sand. At
times the wind rolls down the steeps with the
crushing, flattening force of a tidal wave. Many
places have the appearance of having been gone
over by a terrible harrow or an enormous roller.
In some localities all the trees, except the few
protected by rocky ledges or closely braced by
their encircling fellows, are crippled or over-
thrown.

Although I have visited timber-line in a num-
ber of States, most of my studies have been
made on the eastern slope of the Continental
Divide in Colorado. This ragged edge, with its
ups and downs and curves, I have eagerly fol-
lowed for hundreds of miles. Exploring this
during every month of the year, I have had

52

THE WAV OF Till WIND AT TIMr.KK-I.IXK

£0* $0Xt6t §TQYlt\tX

great days and nights along the timber-line. It
was ever good to be with these trees in the clear
air, up close to the wide and silent sky. Ad-
venturers they appeared, strangely wrapped and
enveloped in the shifting fog of low-drifting
clouds. In the twilight they were always groups
and forms of friendly figures, while by moon-
light they were just a romantic camp of fra-
ternal explorers.

Many a camp-fire I have had in the alpine
outskirts of the forest. I remember especially
one night, when I camped alone where pioneer
trees, rusty cliffs, a wild lake-shore, and a sub-
dued, far-off waterfall furnished sights and
sounds as wild as though man had not yet ap-
peared on earth. This night, for a time, a cave
man directed my imagination, and it ran riot
in primeval fields. After indulging these pre-
historic visions, I made a great camp-fire with
a monumental pile of tree-trunks and limbs on
the shore of the lake, close to the cliff. These
slow-grown woods were full of pitch, and the
fire was of such blazing proportions that it
would have caused consternation anywhere in

53

Q$oc% Qtlounfain T3?onbttfonl>

Europe. The leaping, eager flames threw waver-
ing lights across the lake on the steeply rising
heights beyond. These brought the alarm cry
of a coyote, with many an answer and echo, and
the mocking laughter of a fox.

Even these wild voices in the primeval night
were neither so strange nor so eloquent as the
storm-made and resolute tree-forms that rose,
peered, and vanished where my firelight fell
and changed.

At most timber-lines the high winds always
blow from one direction. On the eastern slope
of the Colorado divide they are westerly, down
the mountain. Many of the trees possess a long
vertical fringe of limbs to leeward, being limb-
less and barkless to stormward. Each might
serve as an impressive symbolic statue of a
windstorm. Permanently their limbs stream
to leeward together, with fixed bends and dis-
tortions as though changed to metal in the height
of a storm.

Whenever a tree dies and remains standing,
the sand-blasts speedily erode and carve its un-
evenly resistant wood into a totem pole which

54

£0e §ovtBt jfrwndtt

bears many strange embossed pictographs. In
time these trees are entirely worn away by the
violence of wind-blown ice-pellets and the
gnawings of the sand-toothed gales.

Novel effects are here and there seen in long
hedges of wind-trimmed trees. These are
aligned by the wind. They precisely parallel
the wind-current and have grown to leeward
from the shelter of a boulder or other wind-
break. Apparently an adventurous tree makes
a successful stand behind the boulder; then its
seeds or those of other trees proceed to form a
crowding line to the leeward in the shelter thus
afforded. Some of these hedges are a few hun-
dred feet in length; rarely are they more than
a few feet high or wide. At the front the sand-
blasts trim this hedge to the height and width
of the wind-break. Though there may be in
some a slight, gradual increase in height from
the front toward the rear, the wind trims off
adventurous twigs on the side-lines and keeps
the width almost uniform throughout.

During the wildest of winds I sometimes
deliberately spent a day or a night in the most

55

(Roc6j> (mountain TUonberfanfc

exposed places at timber-line, protected in an
elkskin sleeping-bag. Wildly, grandly, the
surging gusts boomed, ripped, roared, and ex-
ploded, as they struck or swept on. The ex-
perience was somewhat like lying in a diver's
dress on a beach during a storm. At times I was
struck almost breathless by an airy breaker, or
tumbled and kicked indifferently about by the
unbelievable violence of the wind. At other
times I was dashed with sand and vigorously
pelted with sticks and gravel.

This was always at some distance from tree,
boulder, or ledge, for I took no risks of being
tossed against trees or rocks. Many times, how-
ever, I have lain securely anchored and shielded
beneath matted tree-growths, where in safety
I heard the tempestuous booms and the wildest
of rocket-like swishes of the impassioned and
invisible ocean of air. The general sound-
effect was a prolonged roar, with an interplay
of rippings and tumultuous cheerings. There
were explosions and silences. There were hours
of Niagara. In the midst of these distant roar-
ings the fearful approach of an advancing gale

56

&§t §QUBt §xontkt

could be heard before the unseen breaker rolled
down on me from the heights.

The most marked result of cold and snow is
the extreme shortness of the growing-season
which they allow the trees. Many inclined
trees are broken off by snow, while others are
prostrated. Though the trees are flattened
upon the earth with a heavy load for months,
the snow cover affords the trees much protec-
tion, from both the wracking violence of the
winds and their devitalizing dryness. I know
of a few instances of the winter snows piling so
deeply that the covered trees were not un-
covered by the warmth of the following sum-
mer. The trees suspended in this enforced
hibernating sleep lost a summer's fun and failed
to envelop themselves in the telltale ring of
annual growth.

Snow and wind combined produce acres of
closely matted growth that nowhere rises more
than three feet above the earth. This growth
is kept well groomed by the gale-flung sand,
which clips persistent twigs and keeps it closely
trimmed into an enormous bristle brush. In

57

(RocRp Qftounfain TUonberfanb

places the surface of this will support a pedes-
trian, but commonly it is too weak for this; and,
as John Muir says, in getting through, over,
under, or across growths of this kind, one loses
all of his temper and most of his clothing!

Timber-line is largely determined by cli-
matic limitations, by temperature and mois-
ture. In the Rocky Mountains the dry winds
are more deadly, and therefore more deter-
mining, than the high winds. During droughty
winters these dry winds absorb the vital juices
of hundreds of timber-line trees, whose withered
standing skeletons frequently testify to the
widespread depredations of this dry blight. A
permanent advance, too, is made from time to
time. Here and there is a grove, a permanent
settlement ahead of and above the main ranks.
In advance of these are a few lone trees, heroes
scouting in the lead. In moist, sheltered places
are seedlings and promising young trees grow-
ing up in front of the battle-scarred old guard.
Advances on dry, wind-swept ridges are more
difficult and much less frequent; on a few dry
ridges these trees have met with a repulse and

58

£0e ifomtf §xontkx

in some places have lost a little territory, but
along most of its front the timber-line is slowly
advancing into the heights.

With this environment it would be natural
for these trees to evolve more hardiness than
the present trees have. This would mean trees
better fitted to contend with, and more likely to
triumph over, the harsh conditions. Evolu-
tionary development is the triumphing factor
at the timber-line.

The highest timber-line in the world is prob-
ably on Mount Orizaba, Mexico. Frank M.
Chapman says that there are short-leaved pines
(Pinus Montezuma) from thirty to forty feet
high, on the southern exposure of this peak at
an altitude of about 13,800 feet. In Switzer-
land, along the steep and snowy Alps, it is sixty-
four hundred; on Mt. Washington, about forty-
five hundred feet. In the mountains of Colorado
and California it is of approximately equal alti-
tude, between eleven and twelve thousand feet.
Advancing northward from California along the
timber-line, one enters regions of heavy snow-
fall as well as of restricting latitude. Combined,

59

(Rocfy) Qtlounfain TUonberfanb

these speedily lower the altitude of timber-line,
until on Mt. Rainier it is below eight thousand
feet. There is a noticeable dwarfing of the forest
as one approaches the Land of the Midnight
Sun, and in its more northerly reaches it comes
down to sea-level to form the Land of Little
Sticks. It frays out at its Farthest North just
within the Arctic Circle. Most of the Arctic
Ocean's icy waves break on treeless shores.

Everywhere at timber-line the temperature
is low, and on Long's Peak the daily average
is two degrees below the freezing-point. At
timber-line snow may fall any day of the year,
and wintry conditions annually prevail from
nine to ten months. The hardy trees which
maintain this line have adjusted themselves to
the extremely short growing-season, and now
and then mature and scatter fertile seeds. The
trees that do heroic service on all latitudinal and
altitudinal timber-lines of the earth are mem-
bers of the pine, spruce, fir, birch, willow, and
aspen families. At timber-line on the Rocky
Mountains there are three members each from
the deciduous trees and the evergreens. These

60

&§t §omt jficoniitt

are the Engelmann spruce, limber pine, alpine
fir, arctic willow, black birch, and quaking
aspen.

A few timber-line trees live a thousand years,
but half this time is a ripe old age for most
timber-line veterans. The age of these trees can-
not be judged by their size, nor by general ap-
pearance. There may be centuries of difference
in the ages of two arm-in-arm trees of similar
size. I examined two trees that were growing
within a few yards of each other in the shelter
of a crag. One was fourteen feet high and six-
teen inches in diameter, and had three hundred
and thirty-seven annual rings. The other was
seven feet high and five inches in diameter, and
had lived four hundred and ninety-two years!

One autumn a grizzly I was following — to
learn his bill-of-fare — tore up a number of
dwarfed trees at timber-line while digging out
a woodchuck and some chipmunks. A number
of the smaller trees I carried home for careful
examination. One of these was a black birch
with a trunk nine-tenths of an inch in diameter,
a height of fifteen inches, and a limb-spread of

61

(Roc£j> Qtlounfoin TUon^trfcmb

twenty- two. It had thirty-four annual rings.
Another was truly a veteran pine, though his
trunk was but six-tenths of an inch in diameter,
his height twenty-three inches, and his limb-
spread thirty-one. His age was sixty-seven
years. A midget that I carried home in my vest
pocket was' two inches high, had a limb-spread
of about four inches, and was twenty-eight
years of age.

A limber pine I examined was full of annual
rings and experiences. A number of its rings
were less than one hundredth of an inch in
thickness. At the height of four feet its trunk
took on an acute angle and extended nine feet
to leeward, then rose vertically for three feet.
Its top and limbs merged into a tangled mass
about one foot thick, which spread out eight
feet horizontally. It was four hundred and nine
years old. It grew rapidly during its first thirty-
eight years; then followed eighteen years during
which it almost ceased growing; after this it
grew evenly though slowly.

One day by the sunny and sheltered side of a
boulder I found a tiny seed-bearer at an alti-

62

tucle of eleven thousand eight hundred feet.
How splendidly unconscious it was of its size
and its utterly wild surroundings! This brave
pine bore a dainty cone, yet a drinking-glass
would have completely housed both the tree
and its fruit.

Many kinds of life are found at timber-line.
One April I put on snowshoes and went up to
watch the trees emerge from their months-old
covering of snow. While standing upon a
matted, snow-covered thicket, I saw a swelling
of the snow produced by something moving
beneath. "Plainly this is not a tree pulling
itself free!" I thought, and stood still in aston-
ishment. A moment later a bear burst up
through the snow within a few yards of me and
paused, blinking in the glare of light. No plan
for immediate action occurred to me; so I froze.
Presently the bear scented me and turned back
for a look. After winking a few times as though
half blinded, he galloped off easily across the
compacted snow. The black bear and the
grizzly occasionally hibernate beneath these
low, matted tree-growths.

63

(RocGg (Hlounfain Tfronberfanb

The mountain lion may prowl here during
any month. Deer frequent the region in sum-
mer. Mountain sheep often take refuge be-
neath the clustered growths during the autumn
storms. Of course the audacious pine squirrel
comes to claim the very forest-edge and from
a point of safety to scold all trespassers; and
here, too, lives the cheery chipmunk.

This is the nursery, or summer residence, of
many kinds of birds. The "camp-bird," the
Rocky Mountain jay, is a resident. Here in
spring the white-crowned sparrow sings and
sings. During early summer the solitaire, the
most eloquent songster I have ever heard,
comes up from his nest just down the slope to
pay a tribute of divine melody to the listening,
time-worn trees. In autumn the Clarke crow
appears and, with wild and half -weird calls of
merriment, devours the fat nuts in the cones of
the limber pine. During this nutting, magpies
are present with less business than at any other
time and apparently without a plan for devil-
try. Possibly they are attracted and enter-
tained by the boisterousness of the crows.

64

£#e $oxtzt §xontitx

Lovely wild-flower gardens occupy many of
the openings in this torn and bristling edge of
the forest. In places acres are crowded so
closely with thrifty, brilliant bloom that one
hesitates to walk through and trample the
flowers. Here the columbine, the paintbrush,
the monument-plant, and scores of other bright
blossoms cheer the wild frontier.

Rarely are strangers in the mountains thor-
oughly aroused. They need time or explana-
tion in order to comprehend or appreciate the
larger scenes, though they do, of course, have
periodic outbursts in adjectives. But at timber-
line the monumental scene at once has the
attention, and no explanation is needed. Tim-
ber-line tells its own stirring story of frontier
experience by a forest of powerful and eloquent
tree statues and bold, battered, and far-ex-
tending figures in relief.

Only a few of the many young people whom
I have guided to timber-line have failed to feel
the significance of the scene, but upon one party
fresh from college the eloquent pioneer spirit of
the place made no impression, and they talked

65

(RocRp (mountain H?on^rfanfc

glibly and cynically of these faithful trees with
such expressions as "A Dore garden!" "111-
shapen fiends!" "How foolish to live here!"
and ' ' Criminal classes ! ' ' More appreciative was
the little eight-year-old girl whose ascent of
Long's Peak I have told of in "Wild Life on the
Rockies." She paid the trees at timber-line as
simple and as worthy a tribute as I have ever
heard them receive: "What brave little trees
to stay up here where they have to stand all the
time with their feet in the snow!"

The powerful impressions received at timber-
line lead many visitors to return for a better
acquaintance, and from each visit the visitor
goes away more deeply impressed: for timber-
line is not only novel and strange, it is touched
with pathos and poetry and has a life-story that
is heroic. Its scenes are among the most pri-
meval, interesting, and thought-compelling to
be found upon the globe.

Z$t £0inooa TWw&

Cold and snow took possession of the ranges
on one occasion while I was making a stay
in the winter quarters of a Montana cattle
company. There was a quiet, heavy snow, a
blizzard, and at last a sleet storm. At first the
cattle collected with drooping heads and waited
for the storm to end, but long before the sky
cleared, they milled and trampled confusedly
about. With the clearing sky came still and
extreme cold. Stock water changed to ice, and
the short, crisp grass of the plains was hope-
lessly cemented over with ice and snow. The
suffering of the cattle was beyond description.
For a time they wandered about, apparently
without an aim. There were thousands of
other herds in this appalling condition. At
last, widely scattered, they stood humped up,
awaiting death. But one morning the foreman
burst in excitedly with the news, "The Chinook
is coming!" Out in the snow the herds were

69

(Roc8j> Qftounfoin TJ?onb*rfcmb

aroused, and each "critter" was looking west-
ward as though good news had been scented
afar. Across the mountain-tops toward which
the stock were looking, great wind-blown clouds
were flying toward the plains. In less than an
hour the rescuing Chinook rushed upon the
scene. The temperature rose forty degrees in
less than half as many minutes; then it steadied
and rose more slowly. The warm, dry wind
quickly increased to a gale. By noon both the
sleet and the snow were gone, and thousands
of cattle were eagerly feeding in the brown and
curly grass of the wide, bleached plain.

This experience enabled me to understand
the "Waiting for a Chinook" picture of the
"Cowboy Artist." This picture was originally
intended to be the spring report, after a stormy
Montana winter, to the eastern stockholders of
a big cattle company. It showed a spotted soli-
tary cow standing humped in a snowy plain. One
horn is broken and her tail is frozen off. Near
are three hungry coyotes in different waiting at-
titudes. The picture bore the legend "The Last
of Five Thousand, Waiting for a Chinook."

70

It is "Presto! Change!" when the warm
Chinook wind appears. Wintry landscapes
vanish in the balmy, spring-like breath of this
strange, hospitable, though inconstant Gulf
Stream of the air. This wind is extra dry and
warm; occasionally it is almost hot. Many
times in Montana I have experienced the forc-
ing, transforming effectiveness of this hale,
eccentric wind.

The completion of the big copper refinery at
Great Falls was celebrated with a banquet.
One of the larger rooms in the new building was
used for the banquet-hall. Out to this, a mile
or so from the city, the banqueters were taken
in a sleigh. That evening the roads were
snow-and-ice-covered, and the temperature was
several degrees below zero. A Chinook wind
arrived while the banquet was in session, and
although the feast was drawn out no longer
than usual, the banqueters, on adjourning,
found the snow and ice entirely gone, the earth
dry, and the air as balmy as though just off an
Arizona desert in June.

The Chinook blows occasionally over the

7i

Northwest during the five colder months of the
year. Though of brief duration, these winds
are very efficacious in softening the asperities of
winter with their moderating warmth, and they
are of great assistance to the stock and other
interests. Apparently the Chinook starts from
the Pacific, in the extreme Northwest, warm
and heavily moisture-laden. Sweeping east-
ward, it is chilled in crossing the mountains,
on which it speedily releases its moisture in
heavy snowfalls. Warmed through releasing
moisture, it is still further warmed through com-
pression while descending the Cascades, and
it goes forward extremely feverish and thirsty.
It now feels like a hot desert wind, and, like air
off the desert's dusty face, it is insatiably dry
and absorbs moisture with astounding rapidity.
It may come from the west, the southwest,
or the northwest. Its eastward sweep sometimes
carries it into Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas,
but it most frequently floods and favors the
Canadian plains, Oregon, Washington, Mon-
tana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado. It may
come gently and remain as a moderate breeze

72

or it may appear violently and blow a gale.
Its duration is from a few hours to several days.
There are numerous instances on record of a
Chinook greatly raising the temperature, re-
moving several inches of snow, and drying the
earth in an unbelievably short time. An ex-
treme case of this kind took place in northern
Montana in December, 1896. Thirty inches of
snow lay over everything; and the quicksilver-
tip in thermometers was many lines below zero.
In this polar scene the Chinook appeared.
Twelve hours later the snow had entirely van-
ished! The Blackfoot Indians have a graphic
term for this wind, — "the snow-eater."
% In most respects this wind is climatically
beneficial. A thorough warming and drying a
few times each winter renders many localities
comfortably habitable that otherwise scarcely
would be usable. The occasional removal of
snow-excesses has its advantages to all users of
roads, both wagon and rail, as well as being help-
ful to stock interests. There are times when this
wind leaves the plains too dry, but far more
frequently it prevents terrible floods by reduc-

73

(£ocfy> QUounfain TDonbttfonb

ing the heavy snow covering over the sources
of the Columbia and the Missouri before the
swift spring thaw appears. The Chinook is not
likely to create floods through the rapidity of
its action, for it changes snow and water to
vapor and carries this away through the air.

The Chinook is nothing if not eccentric.
Sometimes it warms the mountain-tops and
ignores the cold lowlands. Often in snowy time
it assists the railroad men to clear the tracks
on the summit before it goes down the slope a
few miles to warm the muffled and discouraged
snow-shovelers in the valley. Now and then
a wind tempers the clime for a sheepman, while
in an adjoining valley only a few miles away the
stockman and his herd wait in vain for the
Chinook.

The Chinook may appear at any hour of the
day or night. Occasionally with a rush it chases
winter. Frequently and fortunately it follows
a blizzard. Often it dramatically saves the suf-
fering herds, both wild and tame, and at the
eleventh hour it brings the balm of the south-
land to the waiting, starving birds.

74

%%t <D0tnoo& T27mb

The Chinook wind is a Westerner. Similar
though less far-reaching winds blow in the moun-
tains of Europe and Asia. In the West, and
especially the Northwest, it has a happy and
important place, and the climate of this region
cannot be comprehended without understand-
ing the influence of the Chinook wind.

(#00octaftn<j xotf# (kno)w§bt\U8

Elites

JV very snow-fall caused a snow-slide to rush
y& down Bobtail Gulch. This run-off of snow
was as regular as the run-off of storm-water.
The snow which accumulated at the head of
this gulch was a danger to the trail below, and
if the snow showed the slightest hesitation to
"run" when the storm had ended, a miner from
a neighboring mine started it by rolling a few
stones into it or by exploding a stick of dyna-
mite near by.

During my stay at a miners' boarding-house
in the San Juan Mountains a heavy snow-fall
came to a close. "Has the Greagory run yet? "
inquired the foreman of one of the miners.
"No." "Better start it, then." Ten minutes
later fifty thousand tons of snow went plung-
ing down Greagory Gulch.

"This cabin will never be caught by a snow-

79

(RocRj> QWounfoin TUonfcerfanb

slide!" said the prospector with whom I was
having supper. "A slide hit my cabin in the
Sawtooth Mountains. No more sleeping for
me in the possible right-of-way of a slide! I
sized up the territory before building this cabin
and I 've put it out of the range of slides."

All this was encouraging, as I was to spend
the night in the cabin and had arrived after
the surrounding mountains were hidden in
darkness. A record-breaking snow of eight days
and nights had just ended a few hours before.
During the afternoon, as I came down from
Alpine Pass on snowshoes, the visible peaks and
slopes loomed white and were threateningly
overladen with snow. Avalanches would run riot
during the next few hours, and the sliding might
begin at any minute. Gorges and old slide-
ways would hold most of these in the beaten
slide-tracks, but there was the possibility of
an overladen mountain sending off a shoot-
ing star of a slide which might raise havoc by
smashing open a new orbit.

The large spruces around the cabin showed
that if ever a slide had swept this site it was

80

longer ago than a century. As no steep slope
came down upon the few acres of flat surround-
ing the cabin, we appeared to be in a slide-
proof situation. However, to the north was a
high snow-piled peak that did not look assur-
ing, even though between it and the cabin was
a gorge and near by a rocky ridge. Somewhat
acquainted with the ways of slides, I lay awake
in the cabin, waiting to hear the muffled
thunder-storm of sound which would proclaim
that slides were "running."

Snow-slides may be said to have habits. Like
water, they are governed by gravity. Both in
gulches and on mountain-sides, they start most
readily on steep and comparatively smooth
slopes. If a snow-drift is upon a thirty-degree
incline, it may almost be pushed into sliding
with a feather. A slope more steeply inclined
than thirty degrees does not offer a snow-drift
any visible means of support. Unless this slope
be broken or rough, a snow-drift may slide off
at any moment.

In the course of a winter, as many as half a
dozen slides may start from the same place and

each shoot down through the same gorge or over
the same slope as its predecessor. Only so much
snow can cling to a slope ; therefore the number
of slides during each winter is determined by
the quantity of snow and the character of the
slope. As soon as snow is piled beyond the
holding-limit, away starts the slide. A slide
may have slipped from this spot only a few
days before, and here another may slip away
a few days later; or a year may elapse before
another runs. Thus local topography and local
weather conditions determine local slide habits,
— when a slide will start and the course over
which it will run.

The prospector was snoring before the first
far-off thunder was heard. Things were moving.
Seashore storm sounds could be heard in the
background of heavy rumbling. This thunder
swelled louder until there was a heavy rumble
everywhere. Then came an earthquake jar,
closely followed by a violently explosive crash.
A slide was upon us! A few seconds later tons
of snow fell about us, crushing the trees and
wrecking the cabin. Though we escaped with-

82

out a scratch, a heavy spruce pole, a harpoon
flung by the slide, struck the cabin at an angle,
piercing the roof and one of the walls.

The prospector was not frightened, but he
was mad! Outwitted by a snow-slide! That
we were alive was no consolation to him.
"Where on earth did the thing come from?"
he kept repeating until daylight. Next morn-
ing we saw that to the depth of several feet
about the cabin and on top of it were snow-
masses, mixed with rock-fragments, broken
tree-trunks, and huge wood-splinters, — the
fragment remains of a snow-slide.

This slide had started from a high peak-top
a mile to the north of the cabin. For three
quarters of a mile it had coasted down a slope
at the bottom of which a gorge curved away
toward the west; but so vast was the quantity
of snow that this slide filled and blocked the
gorge with less than half of its mass. Over the
snowy bridge thus formed, the momentum
carried the remainder straight across the gulch.
Landing, it swept up a steep slope for three
hundred feet and rammed the rocky ridge back

83

(Roc6j> (piounfoin TJ?onbtt(ani>

of the cabin. The greater part came to a stop
and lay scattered about the ridge. Not one
tenth of the original bulk went over and up to
wreck the cabin! The prospector stood on this
ridge, surveying the scene and thinking, when
I last looked back.

Heavy slides sometimes rush so swiftly down
steep slopes that their momentum carries their
entire mass destructively several hundred feet
up the slope of the mountain opposite.

Desiring fuller knowledge of the birth and
behavior of avalanches, or snow-slides, I in-
vaded the slide zone on snowshoes at the close
of a winter which had the "deepest snow-fall
on record." Several days were spent watching
the snow-slide action in the San Juan Moun-
tains. It was a wild, adventurous, dramatic
experience, which closed with an avalanche
that took me from the heights on a thrilling,
spectacular coast down a steep mountain-side.

A thick, snowy, marble stratum overlay the
slopes and summits. Appearing on the scene
at the time when, on the steeps, spring was
melting the icy cement that held winter's wind-

84

LIZARD HEAD PEAK IN THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS

piled snows, I saw many a snowy hill and em-
bankment released. Some of these, as slides,
made meteoric plunges from summit crags to
gentler places far below.

A snow-storm prevailed during my first
night in the slide region, and this made a de-
posit of five or six inches of new snow on top of
the old. On the steeper places this promptly
slipped off in dry, small slides, but most of it
was still in place when I started to climb higher.

While I was tacking up a comparatively
smooth slope, one of my snowshoes slipped,
and, in scraping across the old, crusted snow,
started a sheaf of the fluffy new snow to slip-
ping. Hesitatingly at first, the new snow
skinned off. Suddenly the fresh snow to right
and left concluded to go along, and the full
width of the slope below my level was moving
and creaking; slowly the whole slid into swifter
movement and the mass deepened with the
advance. Now and then parts of the sliding
snow slid forward over the slower-moving,
crumpling, friction-resisted front and bottom.

With advance it grew steadily deeper from

85

constantly acquired material and from the in-
fluence of converging water-channels which it
followed. A quarter of a mile from its birth-
place it was about fifty feet deep and twice as
wide, with a length of three hundred feet. Com-
posed of new snow and coasting as swiftly as a
gale, it trailed a white streamer of snow-dust
behind. A steeper or a rougher channel added
to the volume of snow-dust or increased the
agitation of the pace-keeping pennant. The
morning was clear, and, by watching the wig-
wagging snow flag, I followed easily the for-
tunes of the slide to the bottom of the slope.
After a swift mile of shooting and plunging, the
slide, greatly compressed, sprawled and spread
out over a level glacier meadow, where its last
remnant lingered for the warmth of July.

Dismissing this slide, I watched along the
range to the north and south, and from time to
time saw the white scudding plumes of other
slides, which, hidden in the canons, were merrily
coasting down from the steep-sloping crest.

These slides, unless they had run down an
animal, did no damage. They were composed of

86

freshly fallen snow and in their flight had moved
in old channels that had been followed and per-
haps formed by hundreds of slides in years gone
by. Slides of this kind — those which accom-
pany or follow each storm and which promptly
make away with new-fallen snow by carrying
it down through stream-channels — may be
called Storm, or Flood, slides. These usually
are formed in smooth gulches or on steep
slopes.

The other kinds of slides may be called the
Annual and the Century. In places of rough
surface or moderate slope there must be a large
accumulation of snow before a slide will start.
Weeks or even months may pass before storm
and wind assemble sufficient snow for a slide.
Places of this kind commonly furnish but one
slide a year, and this one in the springtime. At
last the snow-drifts reach their maximum;
warmth assists starting by melting snow-cor-
nices that have held on through the winter; these
drop, and by dropping often start things going.
Crags wedged off by winter ice are also re-
leased in spring; and these, in going recklessly

87

(Roc6j> (Tftounfotn Tftonbetfanb

down, often knock hesitating snow-drifts into
action. A fitting name for those slides that
regularly run at the close of winter would be
Spring, or Annual. These are composed of the
winter's local accumulation of snow and slide
rock, and carry a much heavier percentage of
rock-debris than the Storm slide carries. They
transport from the starting-place much of the
annual crumbling and the weatherings of air
and water, along with the tribute pried off by
winter's ice levers; with this material from the
heights also goes the year's channel accumula-
tion of debris. The Annual slide does man but
little damage and, like the Flood slide, it fol-
lows the gulches and the water-courses.

In snowy zones the avalanche is commonly
called a snow-slide, or simply a slide. A slide,
with its comet tail of powdered snow, makes an
intense impression on all who see one. It ap-
pears out of order with the scheme of things;
but, as a matter of fact, it is one of gravity's
working ways, a demonstration of the laws of
sliding bodies. A smooth, steep slope which
receives a heavy fall of snow will promptly

produce or throw off a sliding mass of snow.
Raise, lower, or roughen this slope, increase or
decrease the annual snow-fall, or change the
direction of the wind, — and thus the position
of snow-drifts, — and there will follow cor-
responding slide-action. Wind and calm, grav-
ity, friction, adhesion, cohesion, geology, tem-
perature and precipitation, all have a part and
place in snow-piling and in slide-starting.

The Century slides are the damaging ones.
These occur not only at unexpected times but
in unexpected places. The Century slide is the
deadly one. It usually comes down a course not
before traversed by a slide, and sometimes
crashes through a forest or a village. It may be
produced by a record-breaking snow or by
snow-drifts formed in new places by winds from
an unusual quarter; but commonly the mass is
of material slowly accumulated. This may con-
tain the remnant snows and the wreckage spoils
of a hundred years or more. Ten thousand
snows have added to its slowly growing pile;
tons of rock-dust have been swept into it by the
winds; gravel has been deposited in it by water;

89

QSocRp (mountain Tftm^rfanb

and gravity has conducted to it the crumbling
rocks from above. At last — largely ice — it
breaks away. In rushing down, it gathers ma-
terial from its predestined way.

In the spring of 1901, one of these slides broke
loose and came down the slope of Gray's Peak.
For years the snow had accumulated on a ridge
above timber-line. The mass shot down a steep
slope, struck the woods, and swept to the
bottom about four thousand feet below, mow-
ing down every tree in a pathway about three
hundred feet wide. About one hundred thou-
sand trees were piled in wild, broken wreckage
in the gorge below.

Although a snow-slide is almost irresistible,
it is not difficult, in many localities, to prevent
slides by anchoring the small snow-drift which
would slip and start the slide. In the West, a
number of slides have been suppressed by set-
ting a few posts in the upper reaches of slopes
and gulches. These posts pinned fast the snow
that would slip. The remainder held its own.
The Swiss, too, have eliminated many Alpine
slides by planting hardy shrubbery in the

90

slippery snowy areas. This anchorage gives
the snow a hold until it can compact and freeze
fast. Shrubbery thus is preventing the white
avalanche!

A slide once took me with it. I was near the
bottom of one snowy arm of a V gulch, waiting
to watch Gravity, the world-leveler, take his
next fragment of filling to the lowlands. Sepa-
rating these arms was a low, tongue-like rock-
ledge. A gigantic snow-cornice and a great
snow-field filled, with full-heaped and rounded
measure, the uppermost parts of the other
arm.

Deep rumblings through the earth, echoings
from crags and canons through the communi-
cative air, suddenly heralded the triumphant
starting of an enormous slide. About three
hundred feet up the heights, a broken end-on
embankment of rocks and snow, it came coast-
ing, dusting into view, plunging towards me.
As a rock-ledge separated the two ravines above
the junction, I felt secure, and I did not realize
until too late that I was to coast down on the
slide. Head-on, it rumbled heavily toward me

9i

$oc% Qttounfain T3?otrt>erfanb

with its mixed and crumbling front, making a
most impressive riot of moving matter. Again
and again the snowy monster smashed its
shoulder into the impregnable farther wall. At
last, one hundred feet high and twice as wide,
came its impinging, crumbling front. At times
the bottom caught and rolled under, leaving
the overhanging front to cave and tumble for-
ward with snowy splashes.

This crumbling front was not all snow; oc-
casionally an iceberg or a cargo of stones fell
forward. With snow flying from it as from a
gale-swept, snow-piled summit, this monster
of half a million tons roared and thundered by
in a sound-burst and reverberation of incom-
parable depth and resonance, to plunge into a
deeper, steeper rock-walled gorge. It prob-
ably was moving thirty-five or forty miles an
hour and was gaining in velocity every sec-
ond.

The noise of its passing suppressed the sounds
of the slide that started in the gulch above me.
Before I could realize it, this slide swept down,
and the snow on which I was standing burst up

92

with me into the air, struck and leaped the
low ledge, rammed the rear end of the passing
slide, and landed me, snowshoes down, on top
of it.

The top was unstable and dangerous; it
lurched, burst up, curled under, yawned, and
gave off hissing jets of snow powder; these and
the plunging movements kept me desperately
active, even with my broad snowshoes, to avoid
being swallowed up, or overturned and smoth-
ered, or crushed in the chaotic, Assuring mass.

As its speed increased, I now and then caught
a glimpse, through flying, pelting snow-parti-
cles, of shooting rocks which burst explosively
through the top. At timber-line the gorge walls
abruptly ended and the channel curved swiftly
to the left in a broad, shallow ravine. The mo-
mentum of this monster carried it out of the
ravine and straight ahead over a rough,
forested ridge.

Trees before it were crushed down, and those
alongside were thrown into a wild state of ex-
citement by the violence of swiftly created and
entangling gale-currents. From the maelstrom

93

(Roc6j> (mountain T3?onbttfanb

on the top I looked down upon the panic
through the snow-dust-filled air and saw trees
flinging their arms wildly about, bowing and
posturing to the snow. Occasionally a treetop
was snapped off, and these broken tops swirled
wildly about, hurried forward or backward, or
were floated upward on rotating, slower cur-
rents. The sides of the slide crumbled and ex-
panded ; so it became lower, flatter, and wider,
as it slid forward on a moderate up grade. A
half-mile after leaving the gorge, the slide col-
lided at right angles with a high moraine. The
stop telescoped the slide, and the shock ex-
ploded the rear third and flung it far to right
and left, scattering it over a wide area. Half
a minute later I clawed out of the snow-pile,
almost suffocated, but unhurt.

Toward the close of my last winter as govern-
ment "Snow Observer" I made a snowshoe trip
along the upper slopes of the Continental Di-
vide and scaled a number of peaks in the Rocky
Mountains of central Colorado. During this
trip I saw a large and impressive snow-slide at
a thrillingly close range.- It broke loose and

94

"ran" — more correctly, plunged — by me
down a frightful slope. Everything before it
was overwhelmed and swept down. At the bot-
tom of the slope it leaped in fierce confusion
from the top of a precipice down into a canon.

For years this snowy mass had accumulated
upon the heights. It was one of the "eternal
snows" that showed in summer to people far
below and far away. A century of winters had
contributed snows to its pile. A white hill it was
in the upper slope of a gulch, where it clung,
pierced and anchored by granite pinnacles.
Its icy base, like poured molten lead, had cov-
ered and filled all the inequalities of the founda-
tion upon which it rested. Time and its tools,
together with its own height and weight, at last
combined to release it to the clutch and eternal
pull of gravity. The expanding, shearing, break-
ing force of forming ice, the constant cutting of
emery-edged running water, and the under-
mining thaw of spring sent thundering down-
ward with ten thousand varying echoes a half-
million tons of snow, ice, and stones.

Head-on the vast mass came exploding to-

95

(Rocfty Qftounfcun T27onbetfanb

ward me. Wildly it threw off masses of snowy
spray and agitated, confused whirlwinds of
snow-dust. I was watching from the top of a
precipice. Below, the wide, deep canon was
filled with fleecy clouds, — a bay from a sea of
clouds beyond. The slide shot straight for the
cloud-filled abyss and took with it several hun-
dred broken trees from an alpine grove that it
wrecked just above the precipice.

This swift-moving monster disturbed the air,
and excited, stampeding, and cyclonic winds
flung me headlong, as it tore by with rush and
roar. I arose in time to see the entire wreckage
deflected a few degrees upward as it shot far out
over the cloud-made bay of the ocean. A riot-
ing acre of rock-fragments, broken trees, shat-
tered icebergs, and masses of dusting snow hesi-
tated momentarily in the air, then, separating,
they fell whirling, hurtling, and scattering, with
varying velocities, — rocks, splintered trees, and
snow, — in silent flight to plunge into the white
bay beneath. No sound was given forth as they
fell into, and disappeared beneath, the agitated
sea of clouds. How strange this noiseless fall

96

was! A few seconds later, as the wreckage
reached the bottom, there came from beneath
the silent surface the muffled sounds of crash
and conflict.

TWCb #o(& of (U (Vftounfaini
Summits

^ummtte

^fr^HE higher mountain-ranges rise far above
^S the zone of life and have summits that are
deeply overladen with ancient snow and ice, but
the upper slopes and summits of the Rocky
Mountains of Colorado and the Sierra of Cali-
fornia are not barren and lifeless, even though
they stand far above the timber-line. There is
no other mountain-range on the earth that I
know of that can show such a varied and vigor-
ous array of life above the tree-line as do these
ranges. In the Alps the upper slopes and sum-
mits stand in eternal desolation, without life
even in summertime. The icy stratum that
overlies the summit Alps is centuries old, and is
perpetual down to nine thousand feet. Timber-
line there is only sixty-four hundred feet above
sea-level. How different the climatic conditions
in the Rocky Mountains and in the Sierra, where

IOI

timber-line is at approximately eleven thousand
five hundred feet, or a vertical mile higher than
it is in the Alps!

Even the high peaks of this region have
touches of plant-life and are visited by birds and
beasts. The list of living things which I have
seen on the summit of Long's Peak (14,255 feet
above sea-level) includes the inevitable and
many-tinted lichens, spike-grass, dainty blue
polemonium, and clumps of crimson purple
primroses, all exquisitely beautiful. There are
straggling bumblebees, grasshoppers, and at
least two kinds of prettily robed butterflies.
Among the mammals visiting the summit I have
seen a mountain lion, a bob-cat, a rabbit, and a
silver fox, though only one of each. The bird
callers embrace flocks of rosy finches, ptarmigan,
and American pipits, and numbers of white-
crowned sparrows and j uncos, together with a
scattering of robins, bluebirds, golden eagles,
red-tailed hawks, and hummingbirds!

The summit life zone in the Rocky Moun-
tains not only sweeps up to exceptionally high
altitudes, but it embraces vast territory. In Col-

102

T&ifo #oC8 of (Mounfam^umtmfe

orado alone the Arctic-Alpine territory above
the tree-line probably extends over five million
or more acres. Thrust high in this summit area
are the tops of more than three hundred peaks.
Many of these tower three thousand feet above
the timber-line. Much of this region is made up
of steep slopes, shattered summits, and pre-
cipitous walls, many of which bound canons.
There is a scattering of lakes, gentle slopes,
stretches of rolling moorlands, and bits of wet
meadow or arctic tundra. In this high and far-
extending mountain land one may travel day
after day always above the uppermost reaches
of the forest. In this strange treeless realm
there is a largeness of view. Up close to the
clouds and the sky, the big world far below,
the scene stretches away in boundless, mag-
nificent distances.

The snow-fall of this region varies with local-
ity, and ranges from a few feet up to fifty feet
annually. In most localities this snow is rapidly
evaporated by the exceedingly dry air of the
heights. The remnants of each year's fall com-
monly rest upon the accumulations of prcced-

103

ing years, but during midsummer not one tenth
of the heights is snow-covered. Vast areas are
occupied by craggy peaks and barren rock-
fields. The barrenness is due almost entirely to
a lack of soil, not to altitude nor to the rigors of
the climate. The climate is in many respects
similar to that which wraps the Arctic Circle
near sea-level, and it allows many forms of
vigorous life.

Numerous moraines, terraces, steppes, and
moorlands — the wide sky plains — have their
soil, and this in the warmth of summer gener-
ously produces green grass and brilliant flowers.
These, together with big game, birds, and circling
butterflies, people this zone with life and turn
the towering and terraced heights into the rarest
of hanging wild gardens. In favored places for a
mile or so above timber-line are scattered acres
of heathy growths. Stunted by cold, clipped off
by the wind, and heavily pressed by the snow,
these growths are thickly tangled, bristly, and
rarely more than a few inches in height. Among
these are wintergreen, bunchberry, huckleberry,
kalmia, currant, black birch, and arctic willow.

104

i a

> ■«

O o

- *

/. -

■x. -

a '-

< :
y -

TWfe JbC6 of (mounfom^ummtte

There are miles of moorlands covered with short,
thin grasses, while deeply soil-covered terraces,
cozy slopes, and wet meadows have plushy grass
carpets several inches thick. These growths
form the basic food-supply of both the insects
and the warm-blooded life of the heights.

These alpine pastures are the home of many
mountain sheep. Between Long's Peak and
Mt. Meeker there is a shattered shoulder of
granite that is fourteen thousand feet above sea-
level and at all times partly covered with an
ancient snow-field, the remains of a former gla-
cier. During earlier years I occasionally used the
sky-line by this snow-field for a view-point and
a lingering-place. One day after a long outlook,
I emerged from between two blocks of granite
and surprised a flock of mountain sheep near
by. A majority of them were lying comfortably
among the stones. One was nosing about, an-
other was scratching his side with his hind hoof,
while the patriarchal ram was poised on a huge
block of granite. He, too, was looking down
upon the world, but he was also scouting for
enemies. Upon my appearance, the flock broke

105

(Roc% (piounfatn Tfrontorfanb

away at good speed but in excellent order, the
old ram leading the way. In scrambling up for
a farewell view, I disturbed a mountain lion.
He bounded among the scattered wreckage of
granite and vanished. Here was big game and
its well-fed pursuer, in the mountain heights,
above the limits of tree growth and almost three
miles above the surface of the sea. Many flocks
live at an altitude of twelve thousand feet. Here
the lambs are born, and from this place they all
make spring foraging excursions far down the
slopes into a warmer zone for green stuffs not
yet in season on the heights. Their warm cover-
ing of soft hair protects them from the coldest
blasts. Winter quarters appear to be chosen in
localities from which winds regularly sweep the
snow. This sweeping prevents the snow from
burying food beyond reach, and lessens the
danger of these short-legged mountaineers be-
coming snowbound. They commonly endure
wind-storms by crowding closely against the
lee side of a ledge. Now and then they are so
deeply drifted over with snow that many of the
weaker ones perish, unable to wallow out. The

1 06

TIM JbW of (Wlounfatn^ummite

snow-slide, the white terror of the heights, oc-
casionally carries off an entire flock of these
bold, vigilant sheep.

The mountain lion is a prowler, a cowardly,
rapacious slaughterer, and may visit the heights
at any time. Though apparently irregular in
his visits, he seems to keep track of the seasons
and to know the date for spring lamb, and he is
likely to appear while the sheep arc weak or
snowbound. He is a wanton killer and is ever
vigilant to slay. He lurks and lies in wait and
preys upon all the birds and beasts except the
bear.

i This treeless realm is roamed by both the
grizzly and the black bear; both pay most visits
during the autumn, and the grizzly occasionally
hibernates in these uplands. In summer they
range the forests far below, but with the coming
of autumn they climb the slopes to dig out fat
woodchucks and to get the last of the season's
berries, with which to put on final fat for hiber-
nating. They overturn stones for mice and lick
up the accumulations of chilled insects which
they find along the snow and ice fields. Myriads

107

(£oc% (mountain IPonberfano

of flies, moths, grasshoppers, and other insects
often accumulate along or on the edge of snow
or ice fields in the heights, attracted, apparently,
by the brilliant whiteness of the ice or the snow.
The cold closely surrounding air zone appears
to benumb or paralyze them, and they drop in
great numbers near the margin. Occasionally
swarms of insects are carried by storms up the
heights and dropped upon the snow or ice fields
which lie in the eddying-places of the wind.

One autumn I accompanied a gentleman to
the Hallett Glacier. On arriving, we explored
a crevasse and examined the bergschrund at the
top. When we emerged from the bergschrund,
the new snow on the glacier was so softened in
the sunshine that we decided to have the fun of
coasting down the steep face to the bottom of
the slope. Just as we slid away, I espied a bear
at the bottom, toward which we were speeding.
He was so busily engaged in licking up insects
that he had not noticed us. Naturally the gentle-
man with me was frightened, but it was im-
possible to stop on the steep, steel-like, and
snow-lubricated slope. Knowing something of

108

T#i£& J^ofR of QWounfoiw^ummite

bear nature, the situation, though most interest-
ing, did not appear serious to me. Meantime,
the bear heard us and made lively and awk-
ward efforts to be gone. He fled at a racing gal-
lop, and gave us an excellent side view of his
clumsy, far-outreaching lively hind legs going
it flatfooted.

Deer are among the summer visitors in the
cool uplands, climbing a thousand feet or more
above the uppermost trees. With the first au-
tumn snow they start to descend, and they com-
monly winter from three to six thousand feet
below their summer range. There are a few
woodchuck colonies as high as twelve thousand
feet. The woodchuck, in the spring, despite
short legs and heavy body, gives way to wander-
lust, and as a change from hibernation wanders
afar and occasionally climbs a mountain-peak.
Sometimes, too, a mountain lion prevents his
return. The silver fox is a permanent resident
of these heights and ranges widely over them.
He catches woodchucks and ptarmigan and
feasts on big game that has met with accident
or that has been left to waste by that wild game-

109

(£oc8j> (mountain TUonbetfcmb

hog, the mountain lion. In summer, and oc-
casionally in winter, both the coyote and the
wolf come into the fox's territory.

In slide rock and in bouldery moraines up as
high as thirteen thousand feet, one finds the
pika, or cony. Almost nothing is known of his
domestic life. Apparently he does not hibernate,
for on sunny days he may be seen the year
round. Like the beaver he each autumn lays
up supplies for winter. Hay is his harvest. This
hay is frequently placed in conical piles in the
shelter of shelving rocks. These piles are some-
times two feet in diameter. His haymaking is
done with much hurry. After quickly biting off
a number of plants or grasses, he commonly
seizes these by their ends and simply scampers
for the harvest pile. Quickly thrusting them
in, he hurries away for more. His ways are de-
cidedly in contrast to the beaver's deliberate
movements. When he is sunning himself, one
may, by moving slowly, approach within a few
feet. He has a squeaky whistle and a birdlike
call, each of which it is difficult to describe. He
is a tailless little fellow, and has round ratlike

no

T£iCo $ot& of (mounfoin^ummtte

ears; is dark gray above and whitish beneath.
In appearance he reminds one of a small guinea-
pig, or a young rabbit.

Up in this region, the most skyward of life
zones, nature, as everywhere, is red in tooth
and claw. There are strength and cunning,
victor and vanquished, pursuit and death. One
day, while watching a beetle, I saw a deadly at-
tack. For more than an hour the beetle had
been doing nothing except turn this way and
then that without getting two inches from the
grass-edge on the top of a stone. Suddenly a
black bit darted past my face, struck the beetle,
and knocked him over. It was a wasp, and for
a few seconds these two warriors clinched, and
fought with all their strength, cunning, and
weapons. While locked in deadly struggle, they
fell over a cliff that was twelve inches high ; the
fall broke their hold ; this was instantly renewed,
but presently they ceased to struggle, with the
wasp victor.

The weasel is the white wolf among the
small people of the heights. In winter his pure
white fur allows him to slip almost unsuspected

in

through the snow. He preys upon the cony and
the birds of the alpine zone. Like the mountain
lion and some human hunters, he does wanton
killing just for amusement. He is bloodthirsty,
cunning, and even bold. Many times, within a
few feet, he has glared fiendishly at me, seem-
ing almost determined to attack; his long, low-
geared body and sinister and snaky eyes make
him a mean object to look upon.

An experience with a number of rosy finches
in the midst of a blizzard was one of the most
cheerful ever given me by wild fellow creatures.
While snowshoeing across one of the high
passes, I was caught in a terrific gale, wThich
dashed the powdered snow-dust so thickly and
incessantly that breathing was difficult and at
times almost strangling. Crawling beneath an
enormous rock-slab to rest and breathe, I dis-
turbed a dozen or so rosy finches already in
possession and evidently there for the same pur-
pose as myself. They moved to one side and
made room for me, but did not go out. As I
settled down, they looked at me frankly and
without a fear. Such trust! After one calm

112

Wo $of8 of (mounfoin^umnute

look, they gave me no further attention. Al-
though trustful and friendly, they were reserved
and mannerly. From time to time there were
comings and goings among them. Almost every
snow-dashed incoming stranger gave me a look
as he entered, and then without the least sus-
picion turned to his own feathers and affairs.
With such honor, I forgot my frosted nose and
the blizzard. Presently, however, I crawled
forth and groped through the blinding hurricane
and entered a friendly forest, where wind-shaped
trees at timber-line barely peeped beneath the
drifted snow.

[•* The rosy finch, the brown-capped leucosticte
of the Rockies (in the Sierra it is the gray-
crowned) , is a little larger than a junco and is one
of the bravest and most trusting of the winged
mountaineers. It is the most numerous of the
resident bird-population. These cheery little
bits live in the mountain snows, rarely descend-
ing below timber-line. Occasionally they nest
as high as thirteen thousand five hundred feet.
- The largest bird resident of the snowy heights
is the ptarmigan. Rarely does this bird de-

in

scend below the timber-line. But a late and
prolonged winter storm may drive him and his
neighbor the rosy finch a mile or so down the
slopes. The first fine day he is back again to
the happy heights. The ptarmigan lives in the
heathery growths among huge rocky debris.
Much of the winter-time he shelters himself in
deeply penetrating holes or runs in the com-
pacted snow. His food consists of the seeds and
buds of alpine plants, grasses, and insects. His
ways remind one of a grouse, though he is a
smaller bird. During winter he appears in suit
of white, stockings and all. In spring a few
black and cinnamon-colored feathers are added,
and by midsummer his dress is grayish-brown.
During all seasons he is fairly well concealed
from enemies by the protective coloration of his
clothes, and he depends largely upon this for
protection. He is preyed upon by the weasel,
fox, bear, eagle, and lion.

Although the mountain-tops have only a few
resident birds, they have numerous summer
bird builders and sojourners. Many birds nest
in these heights instead of going to similar con-

114

TUifo SofR of Qrtlounfoin^ummtfs

ditions in the great Arctic Circle nursery. Thus
most birds met with in the heights during the
summer season are the migratory ones. Among
the summer residents are the American pipit,
the white-crowned sparrow, and the gray-
headed junco, the latter occasionally raising two
broods in a summer. Here, too, in autumn come
flocks of robins and other birds for late berries
before starting southward.

The golden eagle may soar above the peaks
during all the seasons, but he can hardly be
classed as a resident, for much of the winter he
spends in the lower slopes of the mountains.
Early in the spring he appears in the high places
and nests among the crags, occasionally twelve
thousand feet above sea-level. The young
eaglets are fed in part upon spring lamb from
the near-by wild flocks.

One day, while in a bleak upland above the
timber-line, I paused by a berg-filled lake, a
miniature Arctic Ocean, with barren rock-
bound shores. A partly snow-piled, half-frozen
moor stretched away into an arctic distance.
Everything was silent. Near by a flock of ptar-

ii5

migan fed upon the buds of a clump of arctic
willow that was dwarfed almost out of existence.
I felt as though in the polar world. " Here is the
environment of the Eskimo," I discoursed to
myself. "He ought to be found in this kind of
place. Here are icebergs, frozen tundras, white
ptarmigan, dwarf willows, treeless distances.
If arctic plants were transported down here on
the Big Ice Floe, surely some Eskimo must have
been swept along. Why did n't he stay? The
climate was better, but perhaps he missed his
blubber and sea food, and there was no mid-
night sun and the nights were extremely short.
The pale and infrequent aurora borealis must
have reminded him of better nights, if not better
days. Anyway, even for the Eskimo, there is no
place like home, even though it be in a domed
and dingy ice house amid the eternal snows and
beneath the wonderful sky of northern lights."
There are fields of varied wild flowers. Bril-
liant in color, dainty, beautiful, and graceful,
they appear at their best amid the wild mag-
nificence of rocky peaks, alpine lakes, and aged
snow-fields, and on the far-extending lonely

116

i — *^» \_-V-kM---'

4

Tfctfo $)C8 of (mounfom^ummite

moorlands. Many of these flowers are your low-
land friends, slightly dwarfed in some cases, but
with charms even fresher, brighter, and more
lovely than those of the blooms you know.
Numerous upland stretches are crowded and
colored in indescribable richness, — acres of
purple, blue, and gold. The flowers, by crowd-
ing the moist outskirts of snow-drifts, make
striking encircling gardens of bloom. In con-
tributed and unstable soil-beds, amid ice and
boulders, they take romantic rides and bloom
upon the cold backs of the crawling glaciers,
and thus touch with color and beauty the most
savage of wild scenes.

The distribution and arrangement of the
flowers has all the charm of the irregular, and
for the most part is strikingly effective and de-
lightfully artistic. They grow in bunches and
beds; the stalks are long and short; rock towers
and barren debris frown on meadow gardens
and add to the attractiveness of the millions of
mixed blossoms that dance or smile. Ragged
tongues of green and blossoms extend for miles.
One of the peculiarities of a few of these plants

117

(Rocfig (THounfcnn T2?onbetrfanb

is that they have stems and axes horizontal
rather than vertical. Others are masses of
mossy, cushion-like bloom. In many cases there
is a marked enlargement of the root-growth,
but the flowers compare favorably in size,
sweetness, and brilliancy of coloring with their
lowland relatives.

Among the blossoms that shine in these polar
gardens are the spring beauty, the daisy, the
buttercup, and the forget-me-not. There are
numbers of the pink and the saxifrage families,
white and purple monkshood, purple asters, and
goldenrod. Whole slopes are covered with paint-
brushes, and among these commonly is a scat-
tering of tall, white-tipped wild buckwheat.
Some of these are scentless, while others diffuse
a rich perfume.

There are numerous hanging gardens that are
grander than all the kings of the earth could
create! White cascades with the soft, fluttering
veils of spray pour through the brilliant bloom
and the bright green of the terraces. In these
gardens may bloom the bluest of mertensia,
gentians, and polemonium, the brightest of

118

TMo fotb of (mountotwgumtmte

yellow avens, the ruddy stonccrop, and gail-
lardias as handsome as any black-eyed Susan;
then there is a fine scattering of shooting-stars,
starworts, pentstemons of prettiest shades, and
the tall and stately columbine, a burst of silver
and blue.

Many of the polar plants that bloom in this
Arctic world were probably brought here from
the Arctic Circle by the vast and prolonged flow
of ice from the north during the last ice age.
Stranded here by the receding, melting ice,
they are growing up with the country under con-
ditions similar to those in the Northland. They
are quick to seize and beautify each new soil-
bed that appears, — soil exposed by the shrink-
ing of snow-fields, piled by landslides, washed
down by water, or made by the dropped or de-
posited sweepings of the winds.

Bees and butterflies follow the flowers, and
every wild garden has the buzz of busy wings
and the painted sails of idle ones. Mountain
sheep occasionally pose and group among the
flowers and butterflies. Often sheep, crags,
ptarmigan, and green spaces, flowers, and water-

119

(Rocflp (fllouttfain TDonbttfcmfc

falls are caught in one small space that sweeps
up into the blue and cloud in one grand picture.

In many localities there are such numbers of
dwarfed plants that one may blunder through
a fairy flower-garden without seeing it. To see
these tiny flowers at their best, one needs to lie
down and use a reading-glass. There are dimin-
utive bellflowers that rise only half an inch above
the earth and masses of cushion pinks and tiny
phlox still finer and shorter.

The Arctic-Alpine zone, with its cloud and
bright sunshine, rests upon the elevated and
broken world of the Rockies. This realm is full
of interest through all the seasons, and with its
magnificence are lovely places, brilliant flowers,
and merry birds to cheer its solitudes. During
winter these polar mountain-stretches have a
strange charm, and many a time my snowshoe
tracks have left dotted trails upon their snowy
distances.

These cheerful wild gardens are threatened
with ruin. Cattle and sheep are invading them
farther and farther, and leaving ruin behind.
With their steep slopes, coarse soil, and shallow

120

TUtfo $ot& of (mounfom^ummtfs

root-growths these alpine growths cannot en-
dure pasturage. The biting, the pulling, and
the choppy hoof-action are ruinous. Destined
to early ruin if pastured, and having but lit-
tle value when so used, these sky gardens
might rightly be kept unimpaired for ourselves.
They would make delightful National Parks.
They have a rapidly increasing value for parks.
Used for recreation places, they would have a
high commercial value; and thus used they
would steadily pay dividends in humanity.

^ome $on$t JfyiBtotp

<^ome $ovtet ffyiBtoty

jfwo picturesque pine stumps stood for years
V/' in the edge of a grove near my cabin. They
looked as old as the hills. Although they had
wasted a little through weathering, they showed
no sign of decay. Probably they were the ruins
of yellow pine trees that before my day had
perished in a forest fire. The heat of the fire that
had caused their death had boiled the pores of
these stumps full of pitch. They were thus pre-
served, and would endure a long, long time.

I often wondered how old they were. A chance
to get this information came one morning
when a number of old pines that grew around
these stumps were blown over. Among those
that went down were three large and ancient
yellow pines and several smaller lodge-pole
pines. These I dissected and studied, with the
idea that their annual wood rings, together with
the scars and embossments, might give informa-

125

tion concerning the death of the old brown-gray
stumps.

Two of the yellow pines showed two hundred
and fifty-six annual rings; the other showed two
hundred and fifty-five. All carried fire scars,
received in the year 1781. Apparently, then,
the stumps had been dead and weathering since
1 78 1. The annual rings in the overthrown lodge-
poles showed that they started to grow in 1782.
Lodge-pole pines commonly spring up immedi-
ately after a fire; these had 'apparently taken
possession of the ground as soon as it was laid
bare by the fire that had killed and partly con-
sumed the two yellow pines and injured the
three scarred ones. Since the lodge-poles were
free from fire scars, since the yellow pine showed
no scar after 1781, and since all these trees had
stood close about the stumps, it was plain that
the stumps were the remnants of trees that
perished in a forest fire in 1781.

Later, a number of trees elsewhere in the
grove were called upon to testify, and these
told a story that agreed with that of the trees
that had stood close to the stumps. These

126

A w ESTERN YELLOW PINE

stumps are now the newel-posts in a rustic
stairway.

Near my home on the slope of Long's Peak
are the records of an extraordinary succession
of forest fires. During the last two hundred and
fifty years eight large fires and numerous small
ones have occurred. Each left a black, fire-en-
graved date-mark. The dates of some of these
fires are 1675, 1707, 1753, 1781, 1842, 1864,
1878, 1885, and 1900. Each fire burned over
from a few hundred to a few thousand acres. In
part, nature promptly reforested after each fire;
consequently some of the later fires swept over
areas that had been burned over by the earlier
ones. Here and there a fire-scarred tree, escap-
ing with its life, lived on to preserve in its rings
the date of the conflagration. In one old pine
I found seven widely separated scars that told
of seven different fires. In addition to the rec-
ords in isolated trees, there were records also
in many injured trees in groves that had sur-
vived and in ragged forest-edges where forest
fires had stopped. An excellent check on the
evidence given by the annual rings of fire-

127

(Roc6g (mountain TPon&etfanb

scarred trees was found in the age of the new
tree-growth that came up in the fire-swept terri-
tory in which, or on the borders of which, were
the telltale fire-injured trees.

Some fires swept so clean that they left be-
hind no date of their ravages, but here and there
the character of the forest and of the soil in
which it stood made me feel certain that the
growth had arisen from the ashes of a fire, and
that I could tell the extent of the fire. In most
localities the fire-killed forest is at once re-
stored by nature. That ever enthusiastic sower,
the wind, reseeds most burned areas within a
year. Burns on the Western mountains com-
monly are covered with young lodge-pole or
aspen within three years. There are a few dry
wind-swept slopes or places left rocky for which
years or even centuries may be required to re-
earth and reforest.

Some members of the Pine Family endure
fire much better than others. The "big tree,"
the redwood, and the yellow and sugar pines
will survive far hotter fires than their relatives,
for their vitals are protected by a thick sheath

128

of slow-burning bark. The Western yellow pine
is one of the best fire-fighters in the forest world.
Its vitals appear able to endure unusual heat
without death, and it will survive fires that kill
neighboring trees of other kinds. In old trees
the trunk and large limbs are thickly covered
with heat-and-fire-resisting bark. In examining
a number of these old fellows that were at last
laid low by snow or landslide or the axe, I found
that some had triumphantly survived a num-
ber of fiery ordeals and two or three lightning-
strokes. One pine of eight centuries carried the
scars of four thunderbolts and seven wounds
that were received from fires decades apart.

The deciduous, or broad-leaf, trees resist
fires better than the coniferous, or evergreen,
trees. Pines and spruces take fire much more
readily than oaks and maples, because of the
resinous sap that circulates through them;
moreover, the pines and spruces when heated
give off an inflammable gas which, rising in front
of a forest fire, adds to the heat and destruc-
tiveness, and the eagerness of the blaze. Con-
sidered in relation to a fire, the coniferous forest

129

(Roc% (mountain TUontetrtmrt

is a poor risk because it is more inflammable
than a deciduous one.

Another advantage possessed by broad-leaf
trees lies in the rapid growth of their seedlings.
Surface fires annihilate most tiny trees. Two-
year-old chestnuts, maples, and, in fact, many
of the broad-leaf youngsters, are three or more
feet high, and are able to survive a severe fire;
but two-year-old white pine, Engelmann spruce,
or long-leaf pine are barely two inches high, —
just fuzzy-topped matches stuck in the earth
that perish in a flash from a single breath of
flame.

The ability to send up sprouts, which most
deciduous trees possess, is also a very great ad-
vantage in the fight against fire. A fire may
destroy a deciduous forest and all its seeds
without injuring the potent roots beneath the
surface. The year following the fire, most of
these roots send up sprouts that swiftly grow
to replace the fallen forest. Among the so-
called Pine Family, the ability to send up
sprouts or shoots is limited to a few kinds, most
prominent of which is the redwood.

130

^omt §Qxtet JEjistotp

Repeated forest fires have injured enormously
the Southern hardwood forests; they have dam-
aged millions of trees so that they have be-
come hollow or punky-hearted. These fires have
burned off limbs or burned into the trunks or
the roots and made openings through which
many kinds of fungi have entered the hearts of
the trees, to doom them to rot and decay.

Forest fires have been common through the
ages. Charcoal has been found in fossil. This
has a possible age of a million years. Charred
logs have been found, in Dakota and elsewhere,
several hundred feet beneath the surface. The
big trees of California have fire scars that are
two thousand years old.

The most remarkable forest fire records that
I ever saw were found in a giant California red-
wood. This tree was felled a few years ago. Its
trunk was cut to pieces and studied by scien-
tific men, who from the number of its annual
rings found the year of its birth, and also de-
ciphered the dates of the various experiences
the tree had had with fire.

This patriarch had stood three hundred feet

131

(Rocfy> (mountain TUonbetrfanb

high, was sound to the core, and had lived
through two thousand one hundred and seventy-
one years. Its existence began in the year 271
B.C. After more than five centuries of life, in
a.d. 245 it was in the pathway of a forest fire
from which it received a bad burn on the lower
trunk. It was one hundred and five years be-
fore this burn was fully covered with tissue and
bark.

Following this fire came the peaceful pro-
cession of twelve centuries. Eleven hundred
and ninety-six times the golden poppies came
to glorify the green hills of spring, while the
songs of mating birds filled woods and meadows.
More than a thousand times the aspens ripened
and scattered their golden leaves, while this
serene evergreen grew and towered more and
more noble through the centuries.

Elsewhere the forests were dim with smoke,
and on the Sierra during these centuries the
heroic "big trees" received many a scar from
fire. But not until 1441 did fire again try this
veteran. Soon after this burn was healed there
came a third fire. This was less injurious than

132

the preceding ones, for the wound that it in-
flicted healed in half a century.

Higher and more stately the tree grew, and in
1729 it attained the age of two thousand years.
At the age of two thousand and eighty-eight
years the fourth fire attacked it. This fire
burned an eighteen-foot scar upon the trunk of
the old tree. In 1900, after the lapse of almost
a century, only a small part of this wound was
overgrown. This year, 1900, came the reaper,
the axeman, who laid low this aged and monu-
mental tree!

What starts forest fires? Some are started by
lightning ; others are kindled by meteors that are
flung from the sky, or by fire that is hurled or
poured from a volcano; a few are caused by
spontaneous combustion; and many are set by
man. Down through the ages primitive and
civilized men have frequently set fire to the
forest. These fires are set sometimes acciden-
tally, sometimes intentionally. The forest has
been fired to drive out game, to improve pas-
turage, to bewilder the enemy during war, and
to clear the land for the plow.

133

During one of my Colorado camping-trips a
high October wind brought me the information
that spruce wood was burning near by. While
I was searching for the fire in the thick needle
carpet of the forest floor, a spark from above
settled before me. A fire was sputtering and
starting in a tree top about thirty feet above the
earth. This fire was starting where a dead lean-
ing tree-trunk was rasping and rubbing against
an upright one. The bark of the standing tree
was powdered and tufted with wood-dust which
had been ground by friction from the trunks as
they swayed and rotated in the wind. This in-
flammable wood-dust, together with accumu-
lated bark-bits and needles, had been set on fire
from the heat generated by these two big sticks
rubbing together. Plainly this was a friction fire.
The incessant swaying of treetops in the tire-
less wind occasionally causes a smoke from
friction at points where overlapping limbs or
entangled trees are rubbing. Within a few min-
utes after my discovery, this fire was roaring
eagerly through the treetops.

Friction fires are rare, but my old notebooks

134

tell of numerous fires that were set by lightning.
Before this fire, which was in the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains, had died out, a lightning-set
fire in the mountains of central Colorado had
attracted my attention with massive, magnifi-
cent smoke-clouds, which were two or three
thousand feet above the mountain-tops. Though
thirty miles distant, these clouds occasionally
took on the bossy white splendor of big cumuli
assembling for summer rain. I resolved to see
the fire at close range.

Until burned territory was reached, I fol-
lowed along sky-line ridges through changing
conditions of clear sky, smoke, and falling ashes,
ready for swift retreat down a slope in case the
fire advanced under smoke cover and surprised
me. The burn was entered at the first edge I
reached. Millions of seared and blackened trees
were standing steadfastly where they had died
at their post. All twigs and leafage were burned
away, but the majority of the trees still carried
their larger limbs and patches of bark. In
places only the tree-trunk, a fire-carved totem
pole, remained. Whirlwinds of flame had

135

(Roc%> (piounfcun TUonbetrfcmb

moved, and in places every burnable thing on
the surface was consumed, and even tree-roots
were burned out two and three feet beneath the
surface.

Though weirdly interesting, these ashen
fields of desolation were not wholly lifeless.
Here, as elsewhere, feasters came to banquet,
and good fortune brought favorites to the scene
of panic and death. Flocks of gorged magpies
were about, and unwontedly bold coyotes, both
filled and foraging, were frequently met with.
At one place a half-dozen beaver were portaging
round a tumble of charred tree-trunks that ob-
structed the brook-channel. Fire had destroyed
the food-supply, and the beaver were seeking
home and harvest in other scenes. A grizzly
bear was wading their pond and feasting on the
dead trout that floated on the surface. Two
black bears, despite terrible threats from the
grizzly, claimed all the fish that came within
reach of the shore. They discreetly kept out of
the pond.

Two fawns and their mother lay dead at the
foot of a cliff. Either blinded or terrorized by

136

fire or smoke, they apparently had leaped or
fallen to death. As I gained the top in climbing
to investigate, an eagle swooped angrily at me
from a topless trunk. Her mate with scorched
feathers lay on the rocks near by. On returning
a few days later I found her still watching the
lifeless one from the same perch in the dead
tree.

In the heart of the burned tract was a thirty-
or-forty-acre tract of forest that had escaped
the fire. It was surrounded with wide though
broken barriers of rock ledges. In this green
oasis were numerous wild-folk refugees. Chip-
munks, rats, woodchucks, and birds were star-
tlingly abundant, but no big game. Apparently
the home people had welcomed the refugees, or
had received them indifferently. The only fight
noticed was between mountain rats. However,
this crowding and overrunning of territory when
the exciting fire was over, probably made many
terrible pages of animal history, before exodus
and death brought a normal readjustment of
life to the territory.

Wandering on across the burn toward the

137

(Roc6j> Qllounfain T3t?onbev(anb

fire-line, I came to the place where a ragged-
edged and beautiful glacier meadow had re-
posed, a poetic park among the spruces dark
and tall. Commonly these meadows are suf-
ficiently saturated to defy fire, but this one was
burning, though slowly and with but little
blaze or smoke. The fire was working toward
the centre from the edges and eating downward
from one to three feet. This kind of meadow
usually carries a covering stratum of a kind of
peat or turf which is composed almost entirely
of matted grass or sedge roots that are almost
free from earthy or mineral matter. These mead-
ows lack warmth or soil sufficient to germinate
tree seeds or to grow trees. Often they remain
beautiful treeless gardens for generations, while
wind and wash slowly bring sediment, or until
a flood or landslip brings soil. The deep burning
of the surface and the consequent deposit of
ash on the new surface probably offered an
abiding-place to the next adventurous tree seeds.
Glacier meadows occasionally have this kind of
ending.

Two prospectors were found at work in a
138

spruce forest near which the fire started but
which it did not reach for a week. These men
said that, an hour or so after a thunder-shower
of a few days before, one of the brown beetle-
killed pines had sent up a smoke-column. Ap-
parently lightning had struck this tree. The
following day a small fire was burning near it.
This expanded into the forest fire. Commonly
it is a standing dead tree that is set on fire by
the lightning, but the bolt sometimes fires ac-
cumulated trash around the roots where it
enters the earth.

Within this extensive burn the trees had
stood from thirty to one hundred and forty feet
high and from two hundred to three thousand
to the acre, and they were from thirty to four
hundred and fifty years old. A majority were
about two centuries old. The predominating
kinds were yellow pine, Douglas spruce, Engel-
mann spruce, and aspen. Different altitudes,
forest fires, and a variety of slope-exposures,
along with the peculiar characteristics of each
species, had distributed these in almost pure
stands, an area of each kind to itself. There was

139

(Rocfy) (Wtounfcun TUonbttfcmb

some overlapping and mixing, but lodge-pole
pine noticeably stood by itself.

Where first encountered, this fire was roaring
through a thick second growth of lodge-pole
pine. Scattered through this young growth were
hundreds of dead and limbless trees killed by a
fire of thirty years before. The preservative
effect of their fiery death had kept these great
pillars sound, though they had become checked
and weathered. They burned slowly, and that
night while the fire-front was storming a ridge,
these columns spread sparks and flames from
split sides, or as gigantic candles blazed only
at the top. Yellow pines and Douglas spruces
killed in an intensely hot fire are so cooked and
preserved that they will resist weathering or rot
for decades. I have seen a few of these pitchy
broken fellows standing erect in the depth of a
century-old second generation of forest with the
arms of the living trees about and above them.

Down a slope a fire moves more slowly and
with lower temperature than upward on the
same slope. A fire may rush in a minute up a
slope which it would require a day to creep

140

down. A fire is more all-consuming in going up,
and even after years have passed, the remains
left on a slope will often enable one to deter-
mine whether a fire swept up or crept down.
One peculiarity of flames in young growths on
steep slopes is that they sometimes dart up the
heights in tongues, leaving narrow ragged
stretches of unburned trees! Usually these
fiery tongues sweep in a straight line up the
slope.

The intense heat of a passing fire-front is
withering at long distances. I have known a
fire to blister aspen clumps that were seven or
eight hundred feet from the nearest burned
trees. The passing flames may have been pushed
much closer than this by slow heavy air-swells
or by the brief blasts of wild wind rushes.

The habits of forest fires are largely deter-
mined by slope-inclination, wind-speed, and the
quantity and quality of the fuel. In places the
fire slips quietly along with low whispering, then
suddenly it goes leaping, whirling, and roaring.
A fire may travel less than one mile or farther
than one hundred miles in a day. The ever

141

(KocRj> (Wounfotn TJ?onbetfanb

varying slope and forest conditions in the moun-
tains are constantly changing the speed and the
enthusiasm of a fire. Where all conditions are
favorable, it sweeps level stretches at a mile-
a-minute speed and rolls up slopes with the
speed of sound!

One evening I climbed a high ridge that stood
about half a mile in front of a heavily forested
peninsula which the fire-front would reach in a
few hours. The fire was advancing across the
valley with a front of about two miles. On
arriving at the top of the ridge, I came up be-
hind a grizzly bear seated on his haunches like
a dog, intently watching the fire below. On
discovering me he took a second look before
concentrating his mind on a speedy retreat.
Along the ridge about a quarter of a mile dis-
tant, a number of mountain sheep could be seen
through the falling ashes, with heads toward
the fire, but whether they were excited or simply
curious could not be determined.

The forested peninsula which extended from
between two forested canons had a number
of meadow openings on the slopes closest to me.

142

Around these were many brilliant fiery dis-
plays. Overheated trees in or across these
openings often became enveloped in robes of
invisible gas far in advance of the flames. This
gas flashed and flared up before the tree
blazed, and occasionally it convoyed the flames
across openings one hundred feet or so above
the earth. Heated isolated trees usually went
with a gushing flash. At other places this flam-
ing sometimes lasted several seconds, and,
when seen through steamy curtains or clouds of
smoke, appeared like geysers of red fire.

At times there were vast scrolls and whirling
spirals of sparks above and around the torren-
tial, upstreaming flames of the fire-front. Mil-
lions of these sparks were sometimes formed by
high outflowing air streams into splendid and
far-reaching milky ways. In moments of general
calm the sky was deeply filled with myriads of
excited sparks, which gradually quieted, then
floated beautifully, peacefully up to vanish in
the night.

Meantime the fire-front was pushed by wind-
currents and led by ridges. By the time the

143

fire-line had advanced to the steeper slopes it
was one vast U about three miles long. Its
closed end was around the peninsula toward me.
The fire-front rushed upward through the dense
forest of the peninsula steeps more swiftly than
the wildest avalanche could have plunged down.
The flames swept across three-hundred-foot
grassy openings as easily as breakers roll in
across a beach. Up the final two thousand feet
there were magnificent outbursts and sheets of
flame with accompanying gale and stormy-
ocean roars. Terrific were the rushes of whirled
smoke-and-flame clouds of brown, ashen green,
and sooty black. There were lurid and volcanic
effects in molten red and black, while tattered
yellow flames rushed, rolled, and tumbled every-
where.

An uprushing, explosive burst of flames from
all sides wrapped and united on the summit.
For a minute a storm of smoke and flame filled
the heavens with riot. The wild, irresistible,
cyclonic rush of fiery wind carried scores of tree-
limbs and many blazing treetops hundreds of
feet above the summit. Fire and sparks were

144

hurled explosively outward, and a number of
blazing treetops rushed off in gale-currents.
One of these blazing tops dropped, a destructive
torch, in a forest more than a mile distant from
the summit!

QUounfoin &&&&

(tttouttfaitt BaUs

/JpTi(;n up in the Rocky Mountains are- lakes
M*) which shine as brightly as dewdrops in a
garden. These mountains are a vast hanging
garden in which flowers and waterfalls, forests
and lakes, slopes and terraces, group and mingle
in lovely grandeur. Hundreds of these lakes and
tarns rest in this broken topography. Though
most of them are small, they vary in size from
one acre to two thousand acres. Scores of these
lakes have not been named. They form a har-
monious part of the architecture of the moun-
tains. Their basins were patiently fashioned by
the Ice King. Of the thousand or more lakes in
the Colorado mountains only a few are not gla-
cial. The overwhelming majority rest in basins
that were gouged and worn in solid rock by
glaciers. John Muir says that Nature used the
delicate snowflake for a tool with which to
fashion lake-basins and to sculpture the moun-
tains. He also says: "Every lake in the Sierra

149

is a glacier lake. Their basins were not merely
remodeled and scoured out by this mighty agent,
but in the first place were eroded from the
solid." The Rocky Mountain lakes are set deep
in canons, mounted on terraces, and strung like
uncut gems along alpine streams. The boulders
in many of their basins are as clean and new as
though just left by the constructive ice.

These lakes are scattered through the high
mountains of Colorado, the greater number
lying between the altitudes of ten thousand and
twelve thousand feet. Few were formed above
the altitude of twelve thousand, and most of
those below ten thousand now are great flower-
pots and hold a flower-illumined meadow or a
grove. Timber-line divides this lake-belt into
two nearly equal parts. Many are small tarns
with rocky and utterly wild surroundings. Cir-
cular, elliptical, and long, narrow forms pre-
dominate. Some lie upon a narrow terrace along
the base of a precipice. Many are great circular
wells at the bottom of a fall ; others are long and
narrow, filling canons from wall to wall.

Glaciers the world over have been the chief
150

(THounfotn Ba&tB

makers of lake-basins, large and small. These
basins were formed in darkness, and hundreds
and even thousands of years may have been
required for the ice to carve and set the gems
whose presence now adds so much to the light
and beauty of the rugged mountain-ranges. The
ponderous glaciers or ice rivers in descending
from the mountain-summits came down steep
slopes or precipitous walls and bore irresistibly
against the bottom. The vast weight of these
embankments of ice moving almost end-on,
mixed with boulders, tore and wore excava-
tions into the solid rock at the bottom of each
high, steep descent.

Nature's ways are interestingly complicated.
Both the number and the location of many of
these glacier lakes are due in part to the pre-
vailing direction of the wind during the last
glacial epoch. This is especially true of those
in the Snowy Range of the Rocky Mountains,
which fronts the Great Plains. The majority
of the lakes in this range are situated on its
eastern slope. Westerly winds undoubtedly
prevailed on these mountains during the de-

151

(Rocflg (THounfain T27onberfanb

positing of the snows which formed and main-
tained the glaciers that excavated these lake-
basins. As a result, much of the snow which fell
on the summit and its westerly slope was swept
across and deposited on the eastern slope, thus
producing on the eastern side deeper ice, more
glaciers, and more appreciable erosion from the
glaciers. The eastern summit of this range is
precipitous and is deeply cut by numerous ice-
worn cirques which extend at right angles to
the trend of this range. These cirques fre-
quently lie close together, separated by a thin
precipitous wall, or ridge. On the westerly side
of the range the upper slopes descend into the
lowlands through slopes and ridges rounded and
but little broken. Over these it is possible to
ride a horse to the summit, while foot travel and
careful climbing over precipitous rocky walls is
in most places required to gain the summit from
the east.

Westerly winds still blow strongly, sometimes
for weeks, and the present scanty snowfall is
largely swept from the western slopes and de-
posited on the eastern side. So far as I know,

1^2

Qftounfatn B,o&tB

all the remaining glaciers in the front ranges are
on the eastern slope. The Arapahoe, Sprague,
Hallett, and Andrews Glaciers and the one on
Long's Peak are on the eastern slope. They are
but the stubs or remnants of large glaciers, and
their presence is due in part to the deep, cool
cirques cut out by the former ice-flows, and in
part to the snows swept to them by prevailing
westerly winds.

Though these lakes vary in shape and size,
and though each is set in a different topography,
many have a number of like features and are
surrounded with somewhat similar verdure.
A typical lake is elliptical and about one fifth
of a mile long; its altitude about ten thousand
feet; its waters clear and cold. A few huge rock-
points or boulders thrust through its surface
near the outlet. A part of its circling shore is of
clean granite whose lines proclaim the former
presence of the Ice King. Extending from one
shore is a dense, dark forest. One stretch of
low-lying shore is parklike and grassy, flower-
crowded, and dotted here and there with a
plume of spruce or fir. By the outlet is a filled-in

153

(Roc% (Mountain T3?onber£anb

portion of the lake covered with sedge and wil-
low.

In summer, magpies, woodpeckers, nut-
hatches, and chickadees live in the bordering
woods. In the willows the white-crowned spar-
row builds. By the outlet or in the cascades
above or below is the ever-cheerful water-ouzel.
The solitaire nesting near often flies across the
lake, filling the air with eager and melodious
song. Along the shore, gentians, columbines,
paintbrushes, larkspur, and blue mertensia often
lean over the edge and give the water-margin
the beauty of their reflected colors.

These lakes above the limits of tree-growth
do not appear desolate, even though stern peaks
rise far above. The bits of flowery meadow or
moorland lying close or stretching away, the
songful streams arriving or departing, soften
their coldness and give a welcome to their rock-
bound, crag-piled shores. Mountain sheep are
often visitors. They come to drink, or to feed
and play in the sedgy meadow near by. Ptar-
migan have their homes here, and all around
them nest many birds from the southland.

154

Qtlounfcun Ba&ts

Into these lakes swift waters run, and here
the snowy cataract leaps in glory. From the
overshadowing cliffs, flattened and lacy streams
flutter down. During the summer there is the
ever-flowing harmony, the endless animation,
of falling water; and in winter there is the
silent and architectural symphony of the frozen
waterfall. Many lakes during summer are
partly edged with inthrusting snow and ice
piles; from time to time fragments of these
piles break away and become miniature ice-
bergs in these small arctic seas.

Although filled with the purest and clearest
water, from a distant height they often appear
to contain a brilliant heavy liquid. Under dif-
ferent lights and from different points of view
they are emerald, opal, inky black, violet, in-
digo-blue, and sea-green. I have approached
one from a high distant point, and as I de-
scended and waveringly advanced, the lake
took on a number of deep colors, each melting
like a passing shadow from one into the other.
Occasionally, too, it almost vanished in dull gray
or flashed up in molten silver. The colors shown

iS5

(Rocfy (mountain Tftonberfcmb

were as vivid as if made of the brilliant fire of
the northern lights. All these changing colors
played on the lake, while the surrounding peaks
towered in cold and silent desolation, changeless
except when occasionally swept with the filmy
bluish shadows of the clouds.

Below the timber-line these lakes are more ap-
pealing, and many in the midst of groves and
meadows help to form delightful wild parks.
Others are hidden away in black forests; tall,
crowding firs and spruces rise from their edges
and hide them completely, even when one is
only a yard or two from their shores. I camped
for a week within a stone's throw of one of these
forest-embowered gems without suspecting its
presence. Returning to camp one evening from
an encircling ramble, I was startled by stepping
into a lake-edge. For a moment I was puzzled.
Instinctively I felt that my camp was about the
width of the lake ahead of me. Although I felt
certain of my bearings, my mental processes
were such that I was unwilling to trust this
strange lake. Instead of walking around its
poetic shore, I lashed two water-soaked logs

156

(THounfoin %ofkt&

together with willows and on this rude raft
made my way directly across. My camp was
within fifty feet of the place where I landed.

Elements of peculiar attractiveness are com-
bined in the lakes that are situated along the
timber-line. Some have a treeless mountain or
a rugged snow-piled peak rising boldly behind,
and an acre or so of meadow between one shore
and the forest. A segment of wind-distorted
trees, a few enormous rock domes, a fine pile
of boulders, and a strip of willow with clumps of
spruces and firs combine to give a charming
border.

Among the best known of these Colorado
lakes are Grand, Trapper's, Bierstadt, Trout,
San Cristoval, Chicago, Thunder, Silver, Mo-
raine, and Twin Lakes. Grand Lake, prob-
ably the largest, is about three miles long by one
mile wide. Its basin appears to be largely due
to a morainal dam. The San Cristoval basin
appears to have been formed by a mud stream
which blockaded a mountain valley. The lakes
of the Long's Peak region are my favorites.
These are numerous and show a variety of forms.

157

(Roc8j> QUounfoin TDonberfanb

Grand Lake and a few others lie to the west;
Thunder Lake, Ouzel Lake, and a dozen others
are in Wild Basin to the south; Odessa, Bierstadt,
and the score of lakes in Loch Vale and Glacier
Gorge are to the north. All are within ten miles
of the summit of this peak. These lakes and
their splendid mountain setting will in time give
scenic fame to the region.

The alpine lakes in the mountains of the West
are but little known to travelers. Many West-
ern people appreciate the beauty of the Swiss
and Italian lakes but do not even know of the
existence of the shining lakes in their own moun-
tains. But the unexcelled beauty and grandeur
of these lakes, their scenic surroundings, and
the happy climate in which they repose will in
due time give them fame and bring countless
travelers to their shores.

In exploring the mountains I have often
camped on a lake-shore. These camps were
conveniently situated for the exploration of
neighboring slopes and the valley below; or for
making excursions to the more rugged scenes,
— the moraines, snow-fields, cirques, and peaks

158

Qftountiun Ba&ts

above. Many an evening after a day with the
moraines and the forests, or with the eagles and
the crags, I have gone down to one of these ideal
camping-places. Here through the night my
fire blazed and faded in the edge of a meadow
before a templed cluster of spruces on a rocky
rim above the lake.

Many times camp was so situated that
splendid sunsets or the lingering pink and silver
afterglow were at their best behind a broken
sky-line ridge. My camp-fire was reflected in
the lake, which often sparkled as if enamel-
filled with stars. Across one corner lay softly
the inverted Milky Way. Shooting stars passed
like white rockets through the silent waters.
The moon came up big and yellow from behind
a crag and in the lake became a disc of gold.
Many a night the cliffs repeated the restlessness
of the wind-shaken water until the sun quieted
all with light. During the calm nights there
were hours of almost unbroken silence, though
at times and faintly a far-off waterfall could be
heard, the bark of a fox sounded across the lake,
or the weird and merry cries of the coyote were

159

(Roc% (piounfoin T&on&erfonb

echoed and reechoed around the shore. More
often the white-crowned sparrow sang hope-
fully in the night. Morning usually was pre-
ceded by a horizon of red and rose and gold.
Often, too, vague sheep and deer along the
farther shore were slowly developed into reality
by the morning light. From all around birds
came to bathe and drink, and meet in morning
song service.

Occasionally I remained in camp almost mo-
tionless from early morning until the stars of
evening filled the lake, enjoying the comings
and goings and social gatherings of the wilder-
ness folk.

These lakes, if frozen during calm times, have
ice of exceeding clearness and smoothness. In
early winter this reflects peak, cloud, and sky
with astonishing faithfulness. In walking across
on this ice when the reflective condition was
at its best, I have marveled at my reflection, or
that of Scotch, my dog, walking on what ap-
peared to be the surface of the water. The lakes
above timber-line are frozen over about nine
months of the year, some of them even longer.

1 60

Qftounfoin BaRes

Avalanches of snow often pile upon them, bury-
ing them deeply.

Gravity and water are filling with debris and
sediment these basins which the glaciers dug.
Many lakes have long since faded from the
landscape. The earthy surface as it emerges
above the water is in time overspread with a
carpet of plushy sedge or grass, a tangle of wil-
low, a grove of aspen, or a forest of pine or
spruce. The rapidity of this filling is dependent
on a number of things, — the situation of the
lake, the stability of the watershed, its relation
to forests, slopes, meadows, and other lakes,
which may intercept a part of the down-coming
sediment or wreckage. This filling material
may be deposited evenly over the bottom, the
lake steadily becoming shallower, though main-
taining its original size, with its edge clean until
the last; or it may be heaped at one end or piled
along one side. In some lakes the entering
stream builds a slowly extending delta, which
in time gains the surface and extends over the
entire basin. In other lakes a side stream may
form an expanding dry delta which the grass,

161

(RocBg Qllounfom TDonberfanb

willows or aspens eagerly follow outward and
cover long before water is displaced from the
remainder of the lake's rock-bound shores. With
many, the lower end of the basin, shallow from
the first, is filled with sediment and changed to
meadow, while the deep upper end lies almost
unchanged in its rock basin. Now and then a
plunging landslide forms an island, on which the
spruces and firs make haste to wave triumphant
plumes. Lake Agnes on the northern slope of
Mt. Richthofen was formed with a rounded
dome of glaciated rock remaining near the
centre. This lake is being filled by the slow in-
flow of a "rock stream."

Landslides, large and small, often plunge into
these lakes. One of the largest rock avalanches
that I ever saw made one wild leap into Chasm
Lake and buried itself. This was about the
middle of June. This glacier lake is on the east-
ern side of Long's Peak and is in a most utterly
wild place. The lake was still covered with
thick ice, and on the ice the snow lay deep. But
spring was melting and loosening things in the
alpine heights. As I stood on a talus slope above

162

Qltounfain Ba&tz

the outlet of the lake, an echoing on the oppo-
site cliffs told me that a rock-slide was coming
down. Almost instantly there was the ripping
whizz of falling stone. A huge stone struck and
pierced twenty feet of snow and more than four
feet of ice, which covered the lake. At the same
instant there came sounds of riot from above.
More stones were coming down. The crash of
their striking, repeated and reechoed by sur-
rounding cliffs and steeps, made an uproarious
crashing as though the top of Long's Peak had
collapsed. It was an avalanche of several thou-
sand tons off the slope of Mt. Washington.

This avalanche was formed of a quantity
of broken granite sufficient to load a number
of freight-trains. It smashed through the icy
cover of the lake. The effect was like a terrific
explosion. Enormous fragments of ice were
thrown into the air and hurled afar. Great
masses of water burst explosively upward, as if
the entire filling of water had been blown out
or had leaped out of its basin. The cliffs oppo-
site were deluged. The confused wind-current
which this created shredded and separated much

163

(KocRg (Wounfoin TO?onberfon*>

of the water into spray, dashing and blowing it
about. I was thoroughly drenched. For half
a minute this spray whirled so thickly that it
was almost smothering.

Water and ice are incessantly at work tearing
down the heights. Water undermines by wash-
ing away the softer parts and by leaching.
Every winter ice thrusts its expansive wedge
into each opening. Places are so shattered by
this explosive action that thousands of gallons
of water are admitted. This collects in open-
ings, and the following winter the freezing and
forcing continues. During the winter the ir-
resistible expansion of freezing water thus
pushes the rocks and widens the openings with
a force that is slow but powerful. Winter by
winter rocks are moved ; summer by summer the
water helps enlarge the opening. Years or cen-
turies go by, and at last during a rainy time or
in the spring thaw a mass slips away or falls
over. This may amount to only a few pounds, or
it may be a cliff or even a mountain-side.

The long ice-ages of the earth appear to have
their sway, go, and return. These alternate with

164

Qttounfain Bc&tB

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 situ-
ated 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.

Qfc QUounfain (pong

(& QUounfain $ony

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 carry-
ing 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 be-
hind 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.

"That is Cricket, the wisest return horse in
these hills," declared the stage-driver, who pro-
ceeded to tell of her triumphant adventures as
he drove on into Silverton. When I went to
hire Cricket, her owner said that I might use

169

(Roc% (mounfam Tt?on*>ettf<mt>

her as long as I desired, and proudly declared
that if she was turned loose anywhere within
thirty miles she would promptly come home or
die. A trip into the mountains beyond Tellu-
ride was my plan.

A "return horse" is one that will go home at
once when set free by the rider, even though
the way be through miles of trailless moun-
tains. He is a natural result of the topography
of the San Juan Mountains and the geographic
conditions therein. Many of the mines in this
region are situated a thousand feet or so up
the precipitous slopes above the valleys. The
railroads, the towns, society, are down in
the canons, — so near and yet so far, — and the
only outlet to the big world is through the
canon. Miners are willing to walk down from
the boarding-house at the mine; but not many
will make the vigorous effort, nor give the three
to four hours required, to climb back up the
mountain. Perhaps some one wants to go to a
camp on the opposite side of the mountain. As
there is no tunnel through, he rides a return
horse to the summit, turns the horse loose, then

170

(2jt (Wlounfam (pong

walks down the opposite side. The return horse,
by coming back undirected, meets a peculiar
transportation condition in a satisfactory man-
ner.

The liverymen of Silverton, Ouray, and Tel-
luride keep the San Juan section supplied with
these trained ponies. With kind treatment and
experience the horses learn to meet emergencies
without hesitation. Storm, fallen trees, a land-
slide, or drifted snow may block the way —
they will find a new one and come home.

The local unwritten law is that these horses
are let out at the owner's risk. If killed or
stolen, as sometimes happens, the owner is the
loser. However, there is another unwritten law
which places the catching or riding of these
horses in the category of horse-stealing, — a
serious matter in the West.

I rode Cricket from Silverton to Ouray, and
on the way we became intimately acquainted.
I talked to her, asked questions, scratched the
back of her head, examined her feet, and oc-
casionally found something for her to eat. I
walked up the steeper stretches, and before

171

evening she followed me like a dog, even when
I traveled out of the trail.

For the night she was placed in a livery-barn
in Ouray. Before going to bed I went out and
patted and talked to her for several minutes.
She turned to watch me go, and gave a pleasant
little whinny as the barn-door closed.

Telluride and Ouray are separated by a moun-
tain that rises four thousand feet above their
altitude. By trail they are twelve miles apart;
by railroad, forty miles. Many people go by
trail from one to the other, usually riding to the
summit, one half the distance, where the horse
is set free, and walking the rest of the way.

When Cricket and I set out from Ouray, we
followed the road to the Camp Bird Mine. We
met horses returning with empty saddles, each
having that morning carried a rider from Ouray
to the mine. Three of these horses were abreast,
trotting merrily, sociably along, now and then
giving a pleasant nip at one another.

We stopped at the Camp Bird Mine, and
while in the office I overheard a telephone
inquiry concerning a return horse, Hesperus,

172

Qt (THounfain (pong

who had been sent with a rider to the summit
and was more than an hour overdue. Half a
mile above the mine we met Hesperus coming
deliberately down. He was not loafing, but was
hampered by a loose shoe. When he reached the
Camp Bird barn he stopped, evidently to have
the shoe removed. As soon as this was done, he
set off on a swinging trot down the trail.

As Cricket and I went forward, I occasionally
gave her attention, such as taking off her sad-
dle and rubbing her back. These attentions she
enjoyed. I walked up the steep places, an act
that was plainly to her satisfaction. Sometimes
I talked to her as if she were a child, always
speaking in a quiet, conversational manner, and
in a merry make-believe way, pretending that
she understood me. And doubtless she did, for
tone is a universal language.

At the summit Cricket met some old friends.
One pony had been ridden by a careless man
who had neglected to fasten the bridle-reins
around the saddle-horn, — as every rider is
expected to do when he starts the pony home-
ward. This failure resulted in the pony's en-

173

tangling a foot in the bridle-rein. When I tried
to relieve him there was some lively dodging be-
fore he would stand still enough for me to right
matters. Another pony was eating grass by
walking in the bottom of a narrow gully and
feeding off the banks. Commonly these horses
are back on time. If they fail to return, or are
late, there is usually a good reason for it.

The trail crossed the pass at an altitude of
thirteen thousand feet. From this point mag-
nificent scenes spread away on every hand. Here
we lingered to enjoy the view and to watch the
antics of the return ponies. Two of them, just
released, were rolling vigorously, despite their
saddles. This rolling enabled me to understand
the importance of every liveryman's caution
to strangers, "Be sure to tighten the saddle-
cinches before you let the pony go." A loose
cinch has more than once caught the shoe of a
rolling horse and resulted in the death of the
animal. A number of riderless ponies who were
returning to Telluride accompanied Cricket
and me down the winding, scene-commanding
road into this picturesque mining town.

174

Qjt QHoun&un (pong

I spent a few days about Telluride riding
Cricket up to a number of mines, taking photo-
graphs on the way. Whenever we arrived at
an exceptionally steep pitch, either in ascend-
ing or in descending, Cricket invited me to get
off and walk. Unbidden she would stop. After
standing for a few seconds, if I made no move
to get off, she turned for a look at me; then if
I failed to understand, she laid back her ears
and pretended to bite at my feet.

One day we paused on a point to look down
at a steep trail far below. A man was climbing
up. A riderless pony was trotting down. Just
as they met, the man made a dash to catch the
pony. It swerved and struck with both fore
feet. He dodged and made another bold, swift
grab for the bridle-rein, but narrowly missed.
He staggered, and, before he could recover, the
pony wheeled and kicked him headlong. With-
out looking back, the pony trotted on down the
trail as though nothing had happened. For a
moment the man lay stunned, then, slowly
rising, he went limping up the slope.

A well-meaning tenderfoot, that afternoon in

175

(Roc(ty QHounfoin TUonberfonb

Telluride, saw a riderless pony and concluded
that he had broken loose. After lively work he
cornered the pony in an alley and caught it.
The owner appeared just as the stranger was
tying the pony to a hitching-post. A crowd
gathered as the owner, laughing heartily,
dragged the stranger into a saloon. I leaped
off Cricket and went into the saloon after them.
To the astonishment of every one Cricket also
walked in.

We left Telluride one sunny October morn-
ing with a sleeping-bag and a few supplies. I
had made plans to have a few days for the study
of forest conditions around Lizard Head and
Mt. Wilson. In the neighborhood of Ophir
Loop, the first night out, the moonlight on the
mountains was so enchanting that I rode on
until nearly morning.

Cricket and I were chummy. The following
afternoon, while waiting for sunset over Trout
Lake, I lay down for a sleep on the grass in a
sun-filled opening surrounded by clumps of tall
spruces. Trusting Cricket to stay near, I threw
her bridle-rein over her head to the ground and

176

Qt Qlloun^ain (pong

thus set her free. In the sunny, dry air I quickly
fell asleep. An hour later, a snorting explosion
on the top of my head awakened me. Though I
was somewhat startled, the situation was any-
thing but alarming. Cricket was lying beside
me. Apparently, while dozing, she had dropped
her head against mine, and had snorted while
her nostrils were against my ear.

We wandered far from the trail, and, after
a few perfect days in the mountain heights, big
clouds came in and snow fell thickly all night
long. By morning it was nearly two feet deep,
and before noon several snow-slides were heard.
Being a good rustler, Cricket had all the morn-
ing been pawing into the snow, where she ob-
tained a few mouthfuls of snowy grass. But
she must be taken where she could get enough
to eat.

After thirty-six hours of storm we started
down a canon out of the snowy wilderness under
a blue sky. No air stirred. The bright sun cast
purple shadows of the pines and spruces upon
the clean white snow. After a few hours we
came to a blockade. The canon was filled with

177

(Roc8p (piounfoin ttton&erfanb

an enormous mass of snow. A snow-slide had
run in from a side gulch. We managed to get
into the upper edge of this snow, where it was
thin and not compressed.

Cricket fought her way through in the most
matter-of-fact manner, notwithstanding her
head and neck were all that showed above the
snow. As these return horses are often caught
out in deep drifts, it is important that they be
good "snow horses." She slowly forced her way
forward, sometimes pawing to make an opening
and again rearing and striking forward with
both fore feet. From time to time she paused to
breathe, occasionally eating a mouthful of snow
while she rested. All the time I talked encour-
agingly to her, saying, "Of course you can
make it!" "Once more!"

When more than halfway through the snow-
slide mass, one of the saddle-cinches caught on
the snag of a fallen log and held her fast. Her
violent efforts were in vain. Wallowing my way
along the rocks several yards above, I de-
scended to her side, cut both saddle-cinches,
threw the saddle and the sleeping-bag off her

178

Qfc (Tftounfain (pong

back, and removed the bridle. Cricket was
thus left a naked horse in the snow.

When after two hours she had made her way
out, I went for the saddle and sleeping-bag.
As it was impossible to carry them, I attached
the bridle to them and wallowed my way for-
ward, dragging them after me. Meantime
Cricket was impatiently waiting for me and
occasionally gave an encouraging hurry-up
neigh.

When I had almost reached her, a mass of
snow, a tiny slide from a shelving rock, plunged
down, sweeping the saddle and the bag down
into the canon and nearly smothering me. As
it was almost night, I made no attempt to re-
cover them. Without saddle or bridle, I mounted
Cricket and went on until dark. We spent the
night at the foot of an overhanging cliff, where
we were safe from slides. Here we managed to
keep warm by a camp-fire. Cricket browsed
aspen twigs for supper. I had nothing. A num-
ber of slides were heard during the night, but
none were near us.

At daylight we again pushed forward. The
179

snow became thinner as we advanced. Near
Ophir Loop, we passed over the pathway of a
slide where the ground had been swept bare.
Having long been vigilant with eyes and ears
for slides, while on this slide-swept stretch, I
ceased to be alert. Fortunately Cricket's vigi-
lance did not cease. Suddenly she wheeled, and,
with a quickness that almost took her from be-
neath me, she made a frantic retreat, as a slide
with thunderous roar shot down into the canon.
So narrowly did it miss us that we were heavily
splashed with snow - fragments and almost
smothered by the thick, prolonged whirl of snow-
dust. Cricket's vigilance had saved my life.

The masses of snow, stones, and broken tim-
ber brought down by this slide blockaded the
canon from wall to wall. These walls were too
steep to be climbed, and, after trying until dark
to make a way through the wreckage, we had to
give it up.

We spent a cold night alongside a cliff.
Cricket and I each ate a few willow twigs. The
night was of refined clearness, and from time to
time I moved away from the pungent camp-

180

Qt Qftounfain (pong

fire smoke to look at the myriads of stars that
pierced with icy points the purple sky.

The clear morning brought no solution of my
problem of getting Cricket through. I could not
abandon her. While she was trying to find
something to eat, I made my way up a side
gulch, endeavoring to find a way for her to the
summit. From the top we could get down be-
yond the slide blockade. After a time a way was
found that was impossible for her at only one
point. This point was a narrow gulch in the
summit. I climbed along a narrow ledge, swept
bare by the slide, then turned into a rocky
gulch which came in from the side. I was within
fifteen feet of success. But this was the width of
a rocky gulch. Beyond this it would be compara-
tively easy to descend on the other side of the
slide wreckage and land in the road to Telluride.

But how was Cricket to get to the other side
of this gorge? Along the right I made my way
through great piles of fallen fire-killed timber.
In places this wreckage lay several logs deep.
I thought to find a way through the four or five
hundred feet of timber-wreckage. Careful ex-

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(Rocity QHounfmn TUonberfanb

amination showed that with much lifting and
numerous detours there was a way through this
except at four places, at which the logs that
blocked the way were so heavy that they could
not be moved. Without tools the only way to
attack this confusion of log-masses was with
fire. In a short time the first of these piles was
ablaze. As I stepped back to rub my smoke-
filled eyes, a neigh came echoing to me from the
side canon below.

Cricket had become lonesome and was try-
ing to follow me. Reared in the mountains, she
was accustomed to making her way through ex-
tremely rugged places, over rocks and fallen
trees. Going to the rim of the canon, I looked
down upon her. There she stood on a smoothly
glaciated point, a splendid statue of alertness.
When I called to her she responded with a
whinny and at once started to climb up toward
me. Coaching her up the steep places and
along narrow ledges, I got her at last to the
burning log obstruction. Here several minutes
of wrestling with burning log-ends opened a way
for her.

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Qfc QHounfain (pong

The two or three other masses were more
formidable than the first one. The logs were so
large that a day or more of burning and heavy
lifting would be required to break through them.
More than two days and nights of hard work
had been passed without food, and I must hold
out until a way could be fought through these
other heavy timber-heaps. Cricket, apparently
not caring to be left behind again, came close to
me and eagerly watched my every move. To
hasten the fire, armfuls of small limbs were
gathered for it. As limbs were plentiful on the
other side of the gorge, I went across on a large
fallen log for a supply, shuffling the snow off
with my feet as I crossed. To my astonishment
Cricket came trotting across the slippery log
after me! She had been raised with fallen tim-
ber and had walked logs before. As she cleared
the edge, I threw my arms around her neck and
leaped upon her back. Without saddle, bridle, or
guiding, she took me merrily down the mountain-
side into the wagon-road beyond the snow-slide
blockade. At midnight we were in Telluride.

£0e <Bri33^ (gear

£#e (Bn^fy (gear

One day in North Park, Colorado, I came
on the carcass of a cow that wolves had
recently killed. Knowing that bears were about,
I climbed into the substantial top of a stocky
pine near by, hoping that one would come to
feast. A grizzly came at sundown.

The carcass lay in a grassy opening sur-
rounded by willow-clumps, grassy spaces, and a
sprinkling of low-growing, round-topped pines.
When about one hundred feet from the carcass,
the bear stopped. Standing erect, with his fore
paws hanging loosely, he looked, listened, and
carefully examined the air with his nose. As the
air was not stirring, I felt that he had not, and
probably would not, scent me in the treetop
perch.

After scouting for a minute or two with all
his keen senses, he dropped on all fours and
slowly, without a sound, advanced toward the
carcass. He circled as he advanced; and, when

187

(Rocfy> (piounfain Tftontorfanb

within thirty feet of the waiting feast, he re-
doubled his precautions against surprise and
ambush. My scent by the carcass probably had
nothing to do with these precautions. A grizzly
is ever on guard and in places of possible ambush
is extremely cautious. He is not a coward ; but
he does not propose to blunder into trouble.

Slipping cautiously to the edge of a thick wil-
low-clump, he suddenly flung himself into it with
a fearful roar, then instantly leaped out on the
other side. Evidently he planned to start some-
thing if there was anything to start.

Standing fully erect, tense at every point, he
waited a moment in ferocious attitude, ready
to charge anything that might plunge from the
willows; but nothing started. After a brief
pause he charged, roaring, through another
willow-clump. It was a satisfaction to know
that the tree-limb on which I sat was substan-
tial. That a grizzly bear cannot climb a tree is
a fact in natural history which gave me im-
mense satisfaction. Every willow-clump near
the carcass was charged, with a roar.

Not finding an enemy, he at last went to the
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£0e <Bri33fy Q^ar

carcass. After feasting for a few minutes he
rose and snarled. Then, sniffing along my trail
a few yards, he stopped to mutter a few growl-
ing threats and returned to the feast.

After eating contentedly and to his satisfac-
tion, he moved round the carcass, raking and
scraping grass and trash on it. Then, pausing for
a minute or two in apparently peaceful contem-
plation, he doubled back on the trail over which
he had come and faded into the twilight.

Alertness and brain-power are characteristics
of the grizzly bear. He is eternally vigilant.
He has the genius for taking pains. He is watch-
ful even in seclusion; and when he is traveling
his amazingly developed senses appear never
to rest, but are constantly on scout and sentinel
duty, — except on rare occasions when he is
temporarily hypnotized by curiosity. I believe
his intelligence to be greater than that of the
dog, the horse, or the elephant. Apparently he
assumes that some one is ever stealthily in pur-
suit.

In repeatedly following the grizzly with pho-
tographic intentions I was almost invariably

189

(RocSg (mountain TCDon&ttfcmb

outwitted. On one occasion I followed one al-
most constantly for eight days and nights; and
though many times I almost had him, yet I
never succeeded. Now and then he climbed a
rocky crag to look about; or he doubled back
a short distance on his trail to some point of
vantage, where he rose on his hind legs, sniffed
the air, looked and listened. At other times he
turned at right angles to his general course,
went a short distance to a point favorable for
seeing, hearing, or smelling his possible pursuer,
and there remained for a few minutes. If all
seemed well, he commonly returned to his trail
and again went forward.

Usually he traveled in the face of the wind;
commonly he promptly changed his course if
the wind changed. In crossing a grassy open-
ing in the woods he sometimes went boldly
across; but on the farther side, concealed by
the trees, he waited to see whether a pursuer
appeared across the opening. Sometimes he
went round an opening to the right or to the
left. Apparently there lay a plan behind his
every move.

190

The third day he was well started diagonally
down the wall of a canon. I naturally concluded
that he would on this course descend to the bot-
tom and there continue down-stream. Instead
of doing this, he stopped at a point about mid-
way down for a long stay. Then from this place
he pointed his nose up-stream and descended
diagonally to the bottom of the canon. At the
bottom he again made an acute angle to ascend
to the top of the opposite wall.

The last three days of this pursuit he knew
that I was following him, but there seemed to
be no change in his tactics. He simply moved
a little more rapidly. Though well acquainted
with grizzly habits, I was unable to anticipate
his next important move, and he defeated every
plan I put into operation.

For several years an outlaw or cattle-killing
grizzly terrorized an extensive cattle-grazing
section in the mountains of Utah. For months
at a stretch he killed a cow or steer at least every
other day. He would make a kill one day and
on the next would appear across the mountains,
forty or more miles away.

191

(RocRg (ttlounfain TZ?on*erfctnb

Organized expeditions, made up of from
thirty to fifty men, with packs of dogs, pursued
him day and night for a week or longer; but
each time he escaped. Large rewards were
offered for his capture. Old trappers and hunt-
ers came from afar, but after weeks of trial gave
up the pursuit.

The grizzly has a well-developed bump of
curiosity. This sometimes betrays him into
forgetfulness. On a few occasions I have come
on one — and twice one unwittingly came
close to me — while he was intent on solving
something that had awakened that curiosity.

Once, while watching a forest fire, I climbed
a mountain to a point above the tree-line in
order to reach a safe and commanding spot
from which to view the flames on a near-by
slope. At the summit I came upon a grizzly
within a few yards of me. He was squatting on
his haunches like a dog, and was intently watch-
ing the fire-fount below. A deep roar at one
place, high-leaping flames at another, a vast
smoke-cloud at another, — each in turn caught
his attention. None of his keen senses warned

192

him of my presence, though I stood near him
for two or three minutes. When I yelled at him
he slowly turned his head and stared at me in
a half-dazed manner. Then he angrily showed
his teeth for a second or two, and finally — much
to my relief — fled like a frightened rabbit.

On another occasion I saw a grizzly on the
opposite side of a narrow canon, with his fore
paws on a boulder, watching with the greatest
interest the actions of a fisherman on the bank
of the stream below. Every cast of the fly was
followed by the head of the bear. The pulling-
up of a trout caused him almost excited interest.
For some minutes he concentrated all his facul-
ties on the fisherman; but suddenly, with no
apparent reason that I could discern, he came
to his senses and broke away in a most
frightened manner, apparently condemning
himself for briefly relapsing into dullness.

Two pet grizzlies that I raised always showed
marked curiosity. An unusual sound near by
or a glimpse of some distant object brought them
to tiptoe height, roused their complete attention,
and held it until the mystery was solved.

193

The grizzly is not ferocious. On the contrary,
he uses his wits to keep far away from man. He
will not make a wanton attack. He will fight
in self-defense; or if surprised, and thinking
himself cornered, he at once becomes the aggres-
sor. If a mother grizzly feels that her cubs are
in danger, she will face any danger for their de-
fense; but the grizzly does not fight unless he
thinks a fight cannot be avoided.

He is a masterful fighter. He has strength,
endurance, powerful jaws, deadly claws, cour-
age, and brains. Before the white man and the
repeating rifle came, he boldly wandered over
his domain as absolute master; there was noth-
ing to fear, — not a single aggressive foe existed.
I doubt whether toward man the grizzly was
ever ferociously aggressive.

That he has changed on account of contact
with the white man and the repeating rifle there
can be no doubt. Formerly the rightful mon-
arch of the wilds through capability, he roamed
freely about, indifferent as to where he went
or whether he was seen. He feared no foe and
knew no master. The bow and arrow, and the

194

£0e d5n'33% ^eat

spear, he held in contempt; for the powerful re-
peating rifle he has a profound respect. He has
been wise to adjust himself to this influential
factor of environment or evolutionary force. He
has thus become less inquisitive and aggressive,
and more retiring and wary. He has learned to
keep out of sight and out of man's way.

A grizzly acts so promptly in emergencies
that he has often been misunderstood. He fights
because he thinks he has to, not because he
wants to.

On one occasion in Wyoming I was running
down a mountain-side, leaping fallen fire-killed
timber. In the midst of this I surprised a grizzly
by landing within a few feet of him. He leaped
to his feet and struck at me with sufficient force
to have almost cut me in two had the blow
landed. Then he instantly fled.

On other occasions I have seen grizzlies sur-
prised, when, though not cornered, they thought
they were and instantly commenced a fierce and
effective fight. Dogs, horses, and men were
charged in rapid succession and either knocked
down or put to flight ; yet in these fights he was

195

not the aggressor. He does not belong to the
criminal class.

Almost every one is interested in bears;
children, the tenderfeet, and Westerners are
always glad to have a good bear story. Count-
less thousands of bear stories have been writ-
ten, — and generally written by people unac-
quainted with the character of grizzly bears.
Most of these stories are founded on one or an-
other of three fundamental errors. One of these
is that the grizzly has a bad temper, — "as
cross as a bear" is an exceedingly common
expression ; another is that bears are ferocious,
watchful, and aggressive, always ready to make
an attack or to do wanton killing ; and the third
is that it is almost impossible to kill him. After
a desperate fight — in the story — the grizzly
at last succumbs, but not, as a rule, until his
body is numerously perforated or changed into
a lead mine. As a matter of fact, a shot in the
brain, in the upper part of the heart, or prop-
erly placed in the spine instantly ends the life
of a grizzly. Most hunters when facing a grizzly
do not shoot accurately.

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£0e <Brt33fy (§tav

One day I saw three men fire from twelve to
sixteen shots at a small grizzly bear on a moun-
tain-side only a short distance away. That
evening these men sincerely asserted that he
must have weighed at least a ton — when he
probably did not weigh more than five hundred
pounds — and that though they shot him full
of lead, he refused to die. I doubt whether a
single one of their shots hit the grizzly. Most
of the shots went wild, and some of them hit a
rocky cliff about two hundred yards distant
and fifty or sixty feet higher than the bear. At
another time I saw a hunter kill four huge griz-
zly bears with just four successive shots. Of
course he knew the vital point at which to aim,
was a good shot, and had perfect self-control
during the few seconds of shooting.

As a rule, the grizzly does not kill cattle or
big game. There were buffalo-killing grizzlies,
and an occasional one now kills cattle. These
killers commonly slay right and left, often kill-
ing a dozen head in a short time, but they do
not often kill big game. I have a number of
times seen elk, deer, and mountain sheep feed-

197

(Roc% (mountain TJ?onberfanb

ing near a grizzly without showing the slightest
concern.

The grizzly is an omnivorous feeder. He will
eat anything that is edible, — fresh meat or
carrion, bark, grass, grasshoppers, ants, fruit,
grubs, and leaves. He is fond of honey and with
it will consume rotten wood, trash, and bees, —
stings and all. He is a destroyer of many pests
that afflict man, and in the realm of economic
biology should be rated high for work in this
connection. I doubt whether any dozen cats,
hawks, or owls annually catch as many mice as
he. But in some localities the grizzly is almost
a vegetarian. In western Montana and in the
southern Selkirks of Canada he lives almost
exclusively on plants and plant-roots, together
with berries and bark.

All grizzlies are fond of fish and in some sec-
tions they become successful fishermen. Some-
times they capture fish by wading along a brook,
and catching, with claws or teeth, the fish that
conceal themselves beneath banks or roots.
Commonly the bear makes a stand in driftwood
on a bank, or on a log that has fallen into or

198

across a stream. From this stand he knocks fish
entirely out of the water with a lightning-like
stroke of his paw. The bears that range along
the water-sheds of the Columbia and its tribu-
taries feed largely on fish, mostly salmon.

I saw a grizzly make a stand in the ripple
of an Idaho stream, where he was partly con-
cealed by a willow-clump. In about half an
hour he knocked five large salmon out of the
water. With a single stroke of his fore paw each
fish was flung on the shore, fifteen or twenty
feet away. He made only one miss. These
salmon weighed between five and twenty
pounds each.

One autumn day, along the timber-line in the
Rocky Mountains, wild folk were feeding on
the last of the season's berries. Birds were pres-
ent in such numbers that it appeared like a
cosmopolitan bird picnic. There were flocks
of grouse and robins, numerous jays and camp-
birds; and noisiest and liveliest of all were the
Clarke crows. I watched the scene from the top
of a tall spruce. This annual autumn feast is
common to both bears and birds. In this region,

199

and in the heights above, the bears sometimes
fatten themselves before retiring for their long
winter's sleep.

While I was up in the tree, out of the woods
below a mother grizzly and her two cubs ambled
into an opening and made their way slowly up
the slope toward me. Mother Grizzly stopped
near my tree to dig out some mice. Just after
this operation she evidently caught a faint
scent of me and instantly stood on tiptoe, all
concentration. Motionless as a statue, she
looked, listened, and gathered information
with her nostrils; but just one whiff of danger
was all that came to her through the calm air.

Presently she relaxed and stood for a moment
on all fours before moving on. One of the cubs
concluded to suckle. Either this violated an
ancient grizzly custom or else it was something
that in the face of danger was too thoughtless
to be excused ; at all events the mother knocked
the cub headlong with a side swing of her left
fore paw. He landed heavily some yards away
and tumbled heels over head. The instant he
rolled on his feet he sniffed the earth eagerly,

200

t$t &tk$i (gear

as though a remarkable discovery had been
made; and immediately he started to dig rapidly
with his fore paws, as if some good thing were
buried just beneath. He may have been only
pretending, however. Without uncovering a
thing, he presently raced forward to overtake
Mother Grizzly.

The hibernating habits of the grizzly are not
completely understood. The custom probably
originated, as did the hibernation of other ani-
mals, from the scarcity of food. In a long ac-
quaintance with the grizzly my study of his
hibernation has brought scanty returns, though
all that I have actually seen has been of the
greatest interest.

The grizzly hibernates each winter, — "dens
up" from three to four months. The length of
time is determined apparently by latitude and
altitude, by the snow-fall, weather conditions, —
whether severe or mild, — and the length of
the winter; and perhaps, also, by the peculiari-
ties or the condition of the individual animal.
Commonly he hibernates in high altitudes, many
going to sleep near or above the timber-line.

201

The place where he hibernates preferably is
a natural cave or a large opening beneath rocks.
If completely sheltered in a cave, he is com-
monly satisfied to lie on bare rocks, with noth-
ing over him. In other places, where the snow
might come in contact with him, he commonly
crawls beneath a huge pile of trash, leaves,
sticks, and roots. Snow had drifted deeply over
each hibernating-place I have found.

That his winter-sleep is more or less restless
is shown in the spring by his hairless hips and
sides, the hair having been worn off during the
winter. This probably is due to frequent turn-
ings from side to side.

He is generally fat when he turns in for his
winter's sleep; but usually he does not eat any-
thing for a few days before going in. On the few
occasions on which I was able to keep track of
a bear for several days before he went to sleep
he did not eat a single thing during the four or
five days that immediately preceded retiring.
I have examined a number of grizzlies that were
killed while hibernating, and in every instance
the stomach and intestines were entirely empty

202

£0e <Brt33% $>ea«r

and clean. These facts lead me to think that
bears do not eat just before hibernating.

Nor do they at once eat heartily on emerg-
ing. The instances in which I was able to watch
them for the first few days after they emerged
from winter quarters showed each time almost
a fast. Those observed ate only a few ounces
of food during the four or five days immediately
after emerging. Each drank a little water. The
first thing each ate was a few willow-twigs.
Apparently they do not eat heartily until a
number of days elapse.

On one occasion I carefully watched a grizzly
for six days after he emerged from his hibernat-
ing-cave. His winter quarters were at timber-
line on Battle Mountain, at an altitude of nearly
twelve thousand feet. The winter had been of
average temperature but scanty snow-fall. I
saw him, by chance, just as he was emerging.
It was the first day of March. I watched him
with a field-glass. He walked about aimlessly
for an hour or more, then returned to his sleep-
ing-place without eating or drinking anything.

The following morning he came forth and
203

wandered about until afternoon; then he broke
his fast with a mouthful of willow-twigs. Soon
after eating these he took a drink of water.
After this he walked leisurely about until
nearly sundown, then made himself a nest at
the foot of a cliff in the woods. Here he remained
until late the following afternoon, apparently
sleeping. Just before sundown he walked out
a short distance, smelled of a number of things,
licked the snow a few times, and then returned
to his nest.

The next morning he went early for a drink
of water and ate more willow-twigs. In the
afternoon of this day he came on a dead bird,
— apparently a junco, — which he ate. An-
other drink, and he lay down at the foot of a
tree for the night. The next morning he drank
freely of water, surprised a rabbit, which he
entirely devoured, and then lay down and prob-
ably slept until noon the following day. On this
day he found a dead grouse, and toward even-
ing he caught another rabbit.

The following day he started off with more
spirit than on any of the preceding ones. Evi-

204

£0e <Bri33fj> Q^ar

dently he was hungry, and he covered more dis-
tance that day than in all those preceding. He
caught another rabbit, apparently picked up
three or four dead birds, and captured a mouse
or two.

Grizzlies are born about midwinter, while
the mother is in the hibernating-cave. The
number at birth is commonly two, though some-
times there is only one, and occasionally there
are as many as four. The period between births
is usually two years. Generally the young bears
run with their mother a year and sleep in the
cave with her the winter after their birth.

At the time of birth the grizzly is a small,
blind, almost hairless, ugly little fellow, about
the size of a chipmunk. Rarely does he weigh
more than one pound! During the first two
months he grows but little. When the mother
emerges from the cave the cubs are often no
larger than cottontail rabbits; but from the
time of emergence their appetites increase and
their development is very rapid.

They are exceedingly bright and playful
youngsters. I have never seen a collie that

205

(Roc8p Qtlounfmn TUonberfcmb

learned so easily or took training so readily as
grizzly bear cubs. My experience, however, is
confined to five cubs. The loyalty of a dog to
his master is in every respect equaled by the
loyalty of a grizzly cub to his master. A grizzly,
young or old, is an exceedingly sensitive animal.
He is what may be called high-strung. He does
unto you as you do unto him. If you are inva-
riably kind, gentle, and playful, he always re-
sponds in the same manner; but tease him, and
he resents it. Punish him or treat him unfairly,
and he will become permanently cross and even
cruel.

Grizzly bears show great variations in color.
Two grizzlies of a like shade are not common,
unless they are aged ones that have become
grizzled and whitish. Among their colors are
almost jet black, dark brown, buff, cinnamon,
gray, whitish, cream, and golden yellow. I have
no way of accounting for the irregularity of
color. This variation commonly shows in the
same litter of cubs; in fact it is the exception
and not the rule for cubs of the same litter to
be of one color. In the Bitter Root Mountains,

206

Z$t (Brt33^ (gear

Montana, I saw four cubs and their mother all
five of which were of different colors.

The color of the grizzly has been and still is
the source of much confusion among hunters
and others who think all grizzlies are grayish.
Other names besides grizzly are frequently used
in descriptions of this animal. Such names as
silver-tip, baldface, cinnamon, and range bear
are quite common. Within the bounds of the
United States there are just two kinds of bears,
— the grizzly and the black; these, of course,
show a number of local variations, and five sub-
species, or races, of the grizzly are recognized.
Formerly he ranged over all the western part
of North America.

The great Alaskan bears are closely allied to
the grizzly, but the grizzly that is found in the
United States is smaller than most people imag-
ine. Though a few have been killed that weighed
a thousand pounds or a trifle more, the major-
ity of grizzlies weigh less than seven hundred
pounds. Most of the grizzly's movements ap-
pear lumbering and awkward; but, despite
appearances, the grizzly is a swift runner. He is

207

(RocRp (nioimfam /Xt?onberfon&

agile, strikes like lightning with his fore paws,
and, when fighting in close quarters, is anything
but slow. The life of a grizzly appears to be
from fifteen to forty years.

In only a few localities is there any close sea-
son to protect him. Outside the National Parks
and a few game preserves he is without refuge
from the hunter throughout the year. It is not
surprising that over the greater portion of his
old territory he rarely is seen. He is, indeed,
rapidly verging on extermination. The lion and
the tiger are often rapacious, cruel, sneaking,
bloodthirsty, and cowardly, and it may be bet-
ter for other wild folk if they are exterminated;
but the grizzly deserves a better fate. He is an
animal of high type; and for strength, mental-
ity, alertness, prowess, superiority, and sheer
force of character he is the king of the wilder-
ness. It is unfortunate that the Fates have con-
spired to end the reign of this royal monarch.
How dull will be the forest primeval without the
grizzly bear! Much of the spell of the wilder-
ness will be gone.

(fringing 6ac6 tfy ^ottst

(grinding fa& t$t §omt

|URING the last fifty years repeated fires
have swept through Western forests and
destroyed vast quantities of timber. As a result
of these fires, most species of trees in the West
have lost large areas of their territory. There is
one species of tree, however, that has, by the
very means of these fires, enormously extended
its holdings and gained much of the area lost
by the others. This species is the lodge-pole
pine.

My introduction to this intrepid tree took
place in the mountains of Colorado. One day,
while watching a forest fire, I paused in the
midst of the new desolation to watch the be-
havior of the flames. Only a few hours before,
the fire had stripped and killed the half-black-
ened trees around me. All the twigs were burned
off the tree beneath which I stood, but the larger
limbs remained ; and to each of these a score or
more of blackened cones stuck closely. Know-

211

(RocGg Qttounfoin TUonberfanb

ing but little of trees and being interested in the
fire, I paid no attention to these cones until a
number of thin, brownish bits, like insects'
wings, came fluttering and eddying easily down
from the treetop.

The ashes and the earth around me were still
warm, and the air was misty with smoke. Near
by, a tall snag and some fallen logs smoked and
blazed by turns. Again, a number of these
tissue bits came fluttering and whirling lightly
down out of the fire-killed treetop. Watching
carefully, I saw brown tissue bits, one after
another, silently climb out of a blackened cone
and make a merry one-winged flight for the
earth. An examination of these brown bits
showed that they were the fertile seeds of the
lodge-pole pine. With heroic and inspiring pio-
neer spirit, this indomitable tree was sowing
seeds, beginning the work of reconstruction
while its fire-ruined empire still smoked.

It is the first tree to be up and doing after
destructive flames sweep by. Hoarded seeds by
the million are often set free by fire, and most of
these reach the earth within a few hours or a few

212

fringing 6acR i$t ^oxtzt

days after the fiery whirlwind has passed by.
Being winged and exceedingly light, thousands
are sometimes blown for miles. It would thus
appear that the millions of lodge-pole seeds re-
leased by fire begin under most favorable con-
ditions. Falling as they do, upon earth cleaned
for their reception, there is little or no competi-
tion and but few enemies. The fire has banished
most of the injurious animals, consumed com-
petitors and their seeds, and prepared an ashen,
mineralized seed-bed; not a leaf shades it, and
altogether it is an ideal place for the lodge-pole
seed and seedlings.

It seems extraordinary that fire, the arch-
enemy of the lodge-pole pine, should so largely
contribute to the forest extension of this tree.
It is not only one of the most inflammable of
trees but it is easily killed by fire. Despite these
weaknesses, such are the remarkable character-
istics of this species that an increase in the num-
ber of forest fires in the West will enable this
tree to extend its holdings; on the other hand,
a complete cessation of fires would, in time, al-
most eliminate it from the forest!

213

The lodge-pole pine (Pinus contorta, var.
Murrayana) lives an adventurous frontier life,
and of the six hundred kinds of North American
trees no other has so many pioneer characteris-
tics. This species strikingly exhibits some of the
necessary requisites in trees that extend or
maintain the forest-frontier. The characteris-
tics which so largely contribute to its success
and enable it to succeed through the agency of
fire are its seed-hoarding habit and the ability
of its seedling to thrive best in recently fire-
cleaned earth, in the full glare of the sun. Most
coniferous seedlings cannot stand full sunlight,
but must have either completely or partly
shaded places for the first few years of their
lives.

Trees grow from seed, sprouts, or cuttings.
Hence, in order to grow or to bring back a forest,
it is necessary to get seeds, sprouts, or cuttings
upon the ground. The pitch pine of New Jersey
and the redwood of California, whether felled
by fire or by axe, will sprout from root or stump.
So, too, will the aspen, chestnut, cherry, cotton-
wood, elm, most of the oaks, and many other

214

Qi5rin<jin<j 6acR i$t §oxt&t

kinds of trees. The extensive areas in New
Brunswick and Maine that were cleared by the
fires of 1825 were in large part at once regrown
with aspen, most of which sprouted from the
roots of burned aspens. Willow is easily prop-
agated from a short section of the root, trunk,
or limb. These sections may be broken from
the tree by accident, be carried miles down-
stream, lodge on shore or shoal, and there take
root and grow. Beaver dams made of willow
poles are commonly overgrown in a short time
with willow. Several years ago a tornado
wrecked hundreds of willows along a Kansas
stream. Each willow was broken into scores of
pieces, which were carried and dropped along
the track of the tornado. Countless numbers
of them were stuck into the earth. Several
thousand willow trees were thus successfully
planted by this violent wind.

Seeds are the chief means by which the forest
is extended or produced. They are sown by
wind and gravity, by water, by birds and beasts.
I have dwelt at length upon the romance of seed-
scattering in "The Spell of the Rockies," in the

215

(£oc(fy (mountain T)7onbet(anb

chapter concerning "The Fate of a Tree Seed."
Each species of tree has its own way of scatter-
ing its seeds. Once upon the earth, they and the
seedlings that may spring from them have pe-
culiar limitations and special advantages. In
some cases — as, for instance, with most wil-
lows and poplars — these seeds must in an ex-
tremely short time find a place and germinate
or they perish ; the seeds of few trees will stand
exposure for two years and still be fertile.

It is only a question of a few years until seeds
are carried to every treeless locality. They may
journey down-stream or across lakes on a log,
fly with birds across mountain-ranges, ride by
easy stages clinging to the fur of animals, or be
blown in storms across deserts; but these ad-
venturous seeds may find grass in possession of
the locality and so thickly sodded that for a
century or longer they may try in vain to es-
tablish a forest.

Commonly wind-blown seeds are first upon
the ground and the most numerous. Though it
is of advantage to be the first upon the ground,
it is of immense importance that the seed which

216

falls in an opening produce a seedling which
thrives in the sun-glare, — which grows without
shade. The seedlings of our great oaks and most
strong and long-lived trees cannot thrive unless
shielded from the sun, sheltered from the wind,
and protected from the sudden temperature-
changes which so often afflict openings. While
these maintain the forest areas, they extend it
but little. Only a small number of trees have
the peculiar frontier characteristics. Young
trees which cannot live in the sun are called
tolerant, — they tolerate shade and need it.
Species which conquer sunny territory are called
intolerant, — they cannot stand shade and
need sunlight. It will thus be seen that the ac-
quirement of treeless territory by any species
of tree demands not only that the tree get its
seeds upon the earth in that territory, but also
that the seeds, once there, have the ability to
survive in the sunlight and endure the sudden
changes of the shelterless opening. Most species
of oaks, elms, firs, and spruces require shade
during their first few years, and though they
steadfastly defend possessions, they can do but

217

(£oc% (mountain TUonfcerfanb

little toward winning new territory. On the
other hand, aspens, willows, gray birch, cotton-
wood, old-field pine, and lodge-pole pine pro-
duce seedlings that glory in the sunlight and
seek to gain more territory, — to push forward
the forest-frontier.

Again and again the forest has been swept
away by fire ; but again and again a few aggres-
sive species have retaken speedily the lost ter-
ritory. In this pioneer reclamation the aspen
and the lodge-pole are leaders. The aspen fol-
lows the water-courses, running along the
muddy places, while the lodge-pole occupies
the dry and rocky slope of the burned area.
Seen from a distance the aspen groves suggest
bright ribbons and pockets on the sombre
cloak with which lodge-pole drapes the moun-
tain. And even beneath the trees the contrast
between the methods of these two agents of
reforestation is marked. The lodge-pole pine
is all for business. Its forest floor is swept
clean and remains uncarpeted. The aspen
groves, on the other hand, seem like the haunts
of little women. Here the floor has a carpet of

218

(fringing 6ac8 t$t §qub(

grass gay with columbines, sweet peas, and
wild roses. While the aspens and the lodge-
poles are still young they begin to shelter the
less hardy coniferous seedlings. But sooner or
later both the aspens and the lodge-poles them-
selves are smothered by their nurslings. They
then surrender their areas to forest trees that
will live to be many times their age.

But that species which is preeminently suc-
cessful in bringing back the forest to a burned-
over area is the lodge-pole pine. It produces
seeds each year and commonly hoards them for
many years. Its seeds are light, winged, and
easily carried by the wind. As they are fre-
quently released by fire, they are sown at the
most opportune time, scattered in profusion,
and, in windy weather, transported long dis-
tances.

Commonly lodge-pole pine holds on to, or
hoards, a percentage of the seeds it bears; that
is to say, these seeds remain in the cone, and
the cone remains on the tree. In some situa-
tions it begins to bear at eight years of age,
and in most localities by the time it is twelve.

219

(Roc% (fllounfom Tftonberfonb

Year after year the cones, with their fertile
seeds safely enclosed, are borne and cling to
the tree. Some of these cones remain unopened
from three to nine years. A small percentage
of them do not open and distribute their seeds
until they have been on the tree from twelve
to twenty years, and many of the cones cling
to the tree through life.

Under favorable conditions the lodge-pole
is a rapidly growing conifer. In a forty-five-year
growth near my home, the varied light and
soil conditions were so spotted that in a small
area marked differences in growth were shown.
A few clusters were vigorous, and the trees
showed an average diameter of six inches and
a height of thirty-four feet. From this the
size dropped, and in one group the individ-
uals were less than one inch in diameter and
scarcely tall enough to be used as a cane; yet all
were forty-five years old.

The lodge-pole is not long-lived. The oldest
one I ever measured grew upon the slope of
Long's Peak. It was three hundred and forty-
six years of age, measured twenty-nine inches

220

(fringing Bacft t$t §oxwt

in diameter, and stood eighty-four feet high.
A study of its annual rings showed that at the
age of two hundred it was only eleven inches
in diameter, with a height of sixty-nine feet.
Evidently it had lived two centuries in an over-
crowded district. The soil and moisture con-
ditions were good, and apparently in its two
hundred and second year a forest fire brought
it advantages by sweeping away its crowding,
retarding competitors. Its annual ring two hun-
dred and two bore a big fire-scar, and after
this age it grew with a marked increase of
rapidity over the rate of previous years. A
mature lodge-pole of average size and age
measures about eighteen inches in diameter
and stands sixty feet high, with an age of be-
tween one hundred and twenty-five and one
hundred and seventy-five years.

The clinging habit of the cones of the lodge-
pole pine in rare cases causes numbers of
them to be caught by the expanding tissues,
held, and finally overgrown and completely
buried up in the tree like a knot. Commonly
the first crop of cones is the one caught. These

221

(£oc% (mountain T&onberfanb

are usually stuck a few inches apart in two
vertical opposite rows along the slender trunk.
Each knob-like cone is held closely against the
trunk by a short, strong stem.

I have a ten-foot plank from the heart of a
large tree which shows twenty-eight imbedded
cones. The biography of this tree, which its
scroll of annual rings pictured in the abstract,
is of interest. The imbedded cones grew upon
the sapling before it was thirty years old and
when it was less than twenty-five feet high.
They appeared upon the slender trunk before
it was an inch in diameter. Twenty-six annual
wood-rings formed around them and covered
them from sight as completely as the seeds the
cone-scales clasped and concealed. The year
of this completed covering, as the annual rings
showed, was 1790. Then the tree was sixty-
six years of age; it came into existence in 1724,
and apparently, from the forest-history of the
place, in the pathway of a fire. This lodge-pole
lived on through one hundred and eighty-two
years. In the spring of 1906 a woodsman cut
it down. A few weeks later two-inch planks

222

OVERGROWN CONKS IN THE !IK\RT OF A LODGE-I'Ol I PINE

(Showing aUo the cones as borne on the twigs and an early stage of the

overgrowing process)

were sliced from the log of this tree in a saw-
mill. The fourth cut split the pith of the tree,
and the startled sawyer beheld a number of
imbedded cones stuck along and around the
pith, the heart of this aged pine. These cones
and the numerous seeds which they contained
were approximately one hundred and fifty years
old. I planted two dozen of the seeds, and three
of these were fertile and sprouted.

Old trees may carry hundreds or even thou-
sands of seed-filled cones. Once I counted 14,137
of these on the arms of one veteran lodge-pole.
If we allow but twenty seeds to the cone, this
tree alone held a good seed-reserve. Commonly
a forest fire does not consume the tree it kills.
With a lodge-pole it usually burns off the twigs
and the foliage, leaving many of the cones
unconsumed. The cones are excellent fire-
resisters, and their seeds usually escape injury,
even though the cones be charred. The heat,
however, melts the resinous sealing-wax that
holds the cone-scales closed. I have known the
heat of a forest fire to be so intense as to
break the seals on cones that were more than one

22^

(Roc% (mountain T27onberfanb

hundred feet beyond the side line of the fire.

In most cases the seedlings spring up on a
burned-over area the year following the fire.
Often they stand as thickly as grain in the
field. Under favorable conditions as many as
one hundred and fifty thousand will appear
upon an acre, and a stand of fifty thousand to
the acre is not uncommon. Starting in a close,
even growth, they usually suppress for years all
other species of trees and most other plants.
Their growth is mostly upward — about the
only direction possible for expansion — with
moderate rapidity. In a few years they are
tall but exceedingly slender, and they become
poles in from twenty-five to fifty years. The
trappers named this tree lodge-pole because of
its common use by the Indians for lodge, or
tepee, poles.

In overcrowded stands, especially those in
which groups or individual trees have slight
advantages over their neighbors, a heavy per-
centage of the growth may die annually for the
want of nutrition. If equal opportunities pre-
vail in a crowded tract, all will grow slowly

224

(fringing 6acR tfyt §oxt&t

until some have an advantage; these will then
grow more rapidly, and shade and suppress
neighboring competitors.

The lodge-pole does good work in developing
places that are inhospitable to other and longer-
lived trees, but it gives way after preparing for
the coming and the triumph of other species.
By the time lodge-poles are sixty years of age
their self-thinning has made openings in their
crowded ranks. In these openings the shade-
enduring seedlings of other species make a start.
Years go by, and these seedlings become great
trees that overtop the circle of lodge-poles
around them. From this time forward the lodge-
pole is suppressed, and ultimately its fire-ac-
quired territory is completely surrendered to
other species. It holds fire-gained areas from
seventy-five to one hundred and fifty years. It
is often supplanted by Douglas or Engelmann
spruce. Let fire sweep these, and back comes
the lodge-pole pine.

Though it distances all competitors in taking
possession of fire-cleared territory, it is less suc-
cessful than its fellows in entering a territory

already occupied by other trees or by grass,
because its seedlings cannot endure shade, and
its seeds will not germinate or take root except
they be brought directly into contact with
clean mineral soil. The lodge-pole, therefore,
needs the assistance of fire both to acquire and
to hold territory. Increase the number of forest
fires, and the lodge-pole extends its holdings; if
we could stop fires altogether, the lodge-pole
would become almost extinct.

The lodge-pole has an astonishing altitudinal
as well as latitudinal range. Scattered pretty
well over the mountain region of the western
United States, thence northward along the
coast over much of the head-waters of the
Yukon in Alaska, it occupies an enormous area.
Over this it adapts itself with marked success
to a variety of soil, moisture, and climatic con-
ditions, and covers ragged tracts from warm
sea-beaches to dry, cold mountain slopes eleven
thousand feet above the sea. In many places it
surrenders the traditional pole form of its race
and wins success by becoming thick-barked,
stocky, and limb-covered from top to bottom.

Qttounfatn (parta

QUounfaitt {pat&s

^J^HE grassy park openings within the moun-
V^ tain forests are among the great charms of
the outdoor world. These are as varied in their
forms as clouds, delightfully irregular of out-
line. Their ragged-edged border of forest, with
its grassy bays and peninsulas of trees, is a
delight. Numbers are bordered by a lake or a
crag, and many are crossed by brooks and dec-
orated with scattered trees and tree-clumps.
Others extend across swelling moraines. All are
formed on Nature's free and flowing lines, have
the charms of the irregular, and are model parks
which many landscape gardeners have tried in
vain to imitate. They vary in size from a mere
grass-plot to a wide prairie within the forest.

"Park" is the name given to most of these
openings, be they large or small . There are many
of these scattered through the Rocky Moun-
tains. North, South, and Middle Parks of Colo-
rado are among the largest. These larger ones

229

are simply meadows on a magnificent scale.
Each is an extensive prairie of irregular outline
surrounded by high forest-draped mountains
with snowy peaks, — an inter-mountain plain
broken by grassy hills and forested ridges.
Here a mountain peninsula thrusts out into the
lowland, and there a grassy bay extends a few
miles back into the forested mountains. Samuel
Bowles, in the "Springfield Republican," gave
the following description of Middle Park while
it was still primeval: "Above us the mountain
peaks go up sharp with snow and rock, and
shut in our view; but below and beyond through
wide and thick forests lies Middle Park, a
varied picture of plain and hill, with snowy
peaks beyond and around. ... It offers as
much of varied and sublime beauty in moun-
tain scenery as any so comparatively easy a trip
within our experience possibly can. ... A short
ride brought us into miles of clear prairie,
with grass one to two feet high, and hearty
streams struggling to be first into the Pacific
Ocean. This was the Middle Park, and we had
a long twenty-five miles ride northerly through

230

Qttounfcun (paxfo

it that day. It was not monotonous by any
means. Frequent ranges of hills break the
prairie; the latter changes from rich bottom
lands with heavy grass, to light, cold gravelly
uplands, thin with bunch grass and sage brush ;
sluggish streams and quick streams alternate;
belts of hardy pines and tender-looking aspens
(cottonwood) lie along the crests or sides of the
hills; farther away are higher hills fully wooded,
and still beyond the range that bounds the
Park and circles it with eternal snows."

During one of his early exploring expedi-
tions, John C. Fremont visited North Park and
wrote of it as follows: "The valley narrowed as
we ascended and presently degenerated into
a gorge, through which the river passed as
through a gate — a beautiful circular valley
of thirty miles in diameter, walled in all around
with snowy mountains, rich with water and
with grass, fringed with pine on the mountain
sides below the snow line and a paradise to all
grazing animals. We continued our way among
the waters of the park over the foothills of the
bordering mountains."

231

(Koclty (mountain TUonbttfonb

Hayden Valley in the Yellowstone National
Park is another large grassy opening in a moun-
tain forest. This valley apparently was once a
vast arm of Yellowstone Lake.

Estes Park, in Colorado, is one of the most
attractive as well as the best known of the
mountain parks. Although much smaller than
Middle or South Park, it is much larger than
hundreds of the other beautiful mountain parks.
The Estes Park region embraces about one
hundred square miles, though only one third of
this is open. The approximate altitude of the
ragged lowland park is a trifle less than eight
thousand feet. This is entirely surrounded by
high mountains which uphold a number of
rocky, snowy peaks. In 1875 Dr. F. V. Hayden,
father of the Yellowstone Park, wrote of this
region: "Within the district treated we will
scarcely be able to find a region so favorably
distinguished as that presented by Estes Park.
Not only has nature amply supplied this valley
with features of rare beauty and surroundings of
admirable grandeur, but it has thus distributed
them that the eye of an artist may rest with

232

Qftounfoin {pax&B

perfect satisfaction on the complete picture
presented." Erosion and glacial action have
given this region its form, while fire made the
beautiful opening or park within a forest.

The majority of parks or meadow gardens
which decorate the forests of the Rocky Moun-
tains probably owe their existence to fire. Trees
and grass are endlessly contending for the pos-
session of the earth. In this incessant silent
struggle a sweeping fire is generally of advan-
tage to the grass. Trees suffer more from fire
than does grass. It is probable that repeated
fires enable the grass to hold the plains and
prairies against the encroachments of the trees.
Each forest fire commonly gives the grass pos-
session of a part of the area formerly dominated
by the forest. Usually both grass and trees
are prompt to seize any fire-cleared area. The
grass may be first to come, or some space may
be wet or in some other way unfavorable to tree
seed but encouraging to grass seed.

While forest fires bring many of these parks,
others are glacier meadows, lake-basins which
time has filled with sediment and sodded with

233

(Roc% (Tltotmfaitt Ttfonbttfcmfc

grass. Many are due to the presence of water,
either outspreading surface water or an excess
of underground water just beneath the surface,
— to streams visible or invisible. A few result
from boggy places which result from impaired
drainage caused by landslips or fallen trees.
Thousands were made by beaver dams, — are
old beaver ponds that filled with sediment and
then grassed over.

Most parks that owe their origin to forest fires
have charcoal beneath the surface. A little
digging commonly reveals charred logs or roots.
Occasionally, too, a blackened tree-snag stands
suggestively in these treeless gardens. In the
competition for this territory, in which grass,
spruces, aspens, and kinnikinick compete, grass
was successful. Just what conditions may have
been favorable to grass cannot be told, though
probably one point was the abundance of mois-
ture. Possibly the fire destroyed all near-by
seed trees, or trees not destroyed may not have
borne seed until the year following the fire.
Anyway, grass often seizes and covers fire-
cleared areas so thickly and so continuously

234

QHounfain {pax&B

with sod that tree seeds find no opening, and
grass thus holds possession for decades, and,
in favorable places, possibly for a century.

Trees grow up around these areas and in due
time the grassy park is surrounded by a forest.
The trees along the edge of this park extend
long limbs out into it. These limbs shade and
kill the grass beneath. Tree seeds sprout where
the grass is killed, and these seedlings in turn
produce trees with long limbs reaching into the
park. These shade and smother more grass and
thus advance the forest another limb's length.
Slowly but surely the park is diminished.

Struggling trees may sometimes obtain a place
in advance of the others or a start in the centre
of the park, and thus hasten the death of the park
and speed the triumph of the trees. A mere in-
cident may shorten the life of a park. A grizzly
bear that I followed one day, paused on a dry
point in a park to dig out some mice. In reach-
ing these he discovered a chipmunk burrow.
By the time he had secured all these he had
torn up several square yards of sod. In this
fresh earth the surrounding trees sowed tri-

235

umphant seeds, from which a cluster of spruces
expanded and went out to meet the surrounding
advancing forest. Fighting deer sometimes cut
the sod and thus allow a few tree seeds to assert
themselves. Wind may blow down a tall tree
which lands in the edge of the park. Along its
full length grows a line of invading forest. Oc-
casionally the earth piled out by a gopher, or
by a coyote in digging out a gopher, offers an
opportunity that is seized by a tree seed. An
ant-hill in a meadow may afford a footing for
invading tree seeds. On one occasion a cliff
tumbled and a huge rock-fragment bounded
far into the sloping meadow. Trees sprang
up in each place where the rock tore the sod
and also around where it came to rest in the
grass.

These breaks in the sod made by animals or
other agencies do not always give triumph to
the trees. Seedlings may eagerly start in these
openings, but, being isolated, they are in greater
danger, perhaps, than seedlings in the forest.
Rabbits may nibble them, woodchucks devour,
or insects overrun them. The surrounding grass

236

Qftounfatn ($)ar(te

may smother them and reclaim the temporarily
lost opening.

But, though only one tree may grow, this in
due time shades the grass, a circle of young
trees rise around it, and these in turn carry for-
ward the work of winning territory. At last the
park is overgrown with trees!

Glacier meadows may be seen in all stages of
evolution. The lake-basin gouged by a glacier
goes through many changes before it is cov-
ered by a forest and forgotten. No sooner does
ice vanish and a glacier lake appear than its
filling-in is commenced. Landslips and snow-
slides thrust boulders and cliff-fragments into
it; running water is constantly depositing sand
and sediment upon its bottom. Sedge and moss
commence covering its surface as soon as its
water becomes shallow. In due time it becomes
a bog with a thick covering like a wet mattress,
composed of the matted roots of sedge and grass.
Over this, wind and water deposit earthy mat-
ter, but centuries may pass before the bog is
filled in sufficiently to have a dry surface and
produce grass and flowers and finally trees.

237

Once while strolling through a forested flat
in central Colorado, I concluded from the to-
pography of the country that it must formerly
have been a glacier lake. I procured tools and
sank a shaft into the earth between the spruces.
At a depth of two feet was a gravelly soil-de-
posit, and beneath this a matting of willow roots
and sedge roots and stalks. These rested in a
kind of turf at water-level, beneath which were
boulders, while under these was bed-rock. Nu-
merous romantic changes time had made here.

Many of these meadows are as level as the
surface of a lake. Commonly the surface is
comparatively smooth, even though one edge
may be higher than the other. I measured one
meadow that was three thousand feet long by
two hundred and fifty feet wide. Tree-ranks
of the surrounding forest crowded to its very
edge. On the north the country extended away
only a foot or two higher than meadow-level.
On the south a mountain rose steeply, and this
surface of the meadow was four feet higher than
the one opposite. The up-the-mountain end
was about three feet higher than the end which

238

(Tftounftun (parfis

had been the old outlet of the lake. The steep
south shore had sent down more material than
the level one on the north. In fact, water-level
on the north shore, though concealed by grass,
was almost precisely the same as when the
waters of the lake shone from shore to shore.
In one corner of the meadow was an aspen
grove. From the mountain-side above, a land-
slide had come down. Rains had eroded this
area to bed-rock and had torn out a gully that
was several feet wide on the slope below. This
washed material was spread out in a delta-like
deposit on the surface of the meadow. Aspens
took possession of this delta.

Glacier meadows are usually longer-lived
than other mountain parks. In favorable places
they sometimes endure for centuries. Com-
monly they are slowly replaced by the extend-
ing forest. The peaty, turfy growth which covers
them is of fine matted roots, almost free of
earthy or mineral matter, and often is a satu-
rated mattress several feet in thickness. The
water-level is usually at the surface, but during
an extremely dry time it may sink several inches

239

or even a few feet. If fires run during a dry
period of this kind, the fire will burn to water-
level. The ashes of this fire, together with the
mineral matter which it concentrates, commonly
form a soil-bed which promptly produces trees.
Sometimes, however, grass returns. Thus,
while fire brings forth many meadows in the
forest, it sometimes is the end of one evolved
from glacial action. A landslip often plunges
a peninsula of soil out upon a glacial meadow.
This is usually captured by trees in a year or
two.

These parks make ideal camping-places, —
wild, beautiful, and alluring in every season.
I have enjoyed them when they were white with
snow, mysterious with cloud and mist, roman-
tic with moonlight, and knee-deep in the floral
wealth of June. Often I have burst out upon
a sunny meadow hidden away in the solitude
of the forest. As it lies silent in the sunshine,
butterflies with beautifully colored wings circle
lightly above its brilliant masses of flowers.
Here bears prowl, deer feed, and birds assem-
ble in such numbers that the park appears to be

240

(THounfcun {pax&B

their social centre. In these wild gardens the
matchless solitaire is found. Often he sings from
the top of a spruce and accompanies his song by
darting off or upward on happy wings, return-
ing and darting again, singing all the time as if
enchanted.

Among the hundreds of these happy resting-
grounds in which I have camped, one in the
San Juan Mountains has left me the most mem-
ories. I came there one evening during a severe
gale. The wind roared and thundered as im-
pressively as breakers on a rock-bound shore.
By midnight the storm ceased, and the tall
trees stood as quietly as if content to rest after
their vigorous exercise in the friendly wrestling-
match with the wind. The spruces had become
towering folded flags of fluffy black. After the
gale the sky was luminous with crowding stars.
I lingered in the centre of the opening to watch
them. The heavens appeared to be made of
many star-filled skies, one behind the other.
The farthest one was very remote, while the
closest seemed strangely near me, just above
the tops of the trees.

241

Many times I have come out of the subdued
light of the pathless forest to enjoy these sunny
openings. Often I have stood within them
watching the butterflies circling in the sun or a
deer and her fawns feeding quietly across, and,
as I looked, I have listened to the scolding of
the squirrel and the mellow ringing of the wood-
pecker far away in the forest. Here I have
watched the coming storm, have enjoyed its
presence, and in its breaking have seen the bril-
liant bow rest its foundations in front of the
trees just across the meadow. Sometimes the
moon showed its soft bow in the edge of the
advancing or the breaking storm.

One evening, before the moon looked into
this fairy garden, I watched a dance of crowd-
ing fireflies. They were as thick as snowflakes,
but all vanished when the moonlight turned the
park into fairyland. Rare shadow etchings the
tall, short-armed spruces made, as they lay in
light along the eastern border of this moon-
filled park. A blue tower of shadow stretched
from a lone spruce in the open to the forest wall
beyond. As the moon rose higher, one of the

242

QUounfam (parfls

dead trees in the edge of the forest appeared to
rise out of the darkness and stand to watch or
to serve. Then another rose, and presently two
appeared side by side and edged into the light.
They might have been conversing. As the night
advanced, the shadow of the spruces shortened
as their shadow points moved round to the north.
As the moon sank behind a mountain, the dead
trees settled back into the darkness, and, just
before light left the park, the two broken trees
moved behind a shadow and vanished. They
were scarcely out of sight when the weird cries of
a fox sounded from the farther edge of the woods.
Those who believe in fairies will receive the
most from Nature. The unfenced wilderness is
full of wild folk, full of fairy gardens and homes.
With these a careless prowler is rarely welcome.
Wasps and bees early gave me sharp hints on
blundering, hurried intrusion, and a mother
grizzly with two cubs by her side also impressed
me concerning this matter. Birds sometimes
made me ashamed for breaking in upon them.
I did no shooting, carried only a kodak, and
was careful to avoid rushing from one place to

243

(Roc6j> QUounfotn T)7onber(anb

another; but refined wilderness etiquette was
yet to be learned. Usually I felt welcome in the
most secluded place, but one day, having wan-
dered out into the corner of the meadow, I felt
that I was not only an uninvited guest, but a
most unwelcome intruder.

The meadow was a deeply secluded one, such
as the fairies would naturally reserve for them-
selves. Towering spruces shut it out from the
world. A summer play was surely in progress
when I blundered upon the scene. With my
intrusion everything stopped abruptly. Each
flower paused in the midst of its part, the music
of the thrush broke off, the tall spruces scowled
stiffly, and the slender, observant young trees
stood unwillingly still. Plainly all were annoyed
at my presence, and all were waiting impatiently
for me to be gone. As I retreated into the woods,
a breeze whispered and the spruces made stately
movements. The flowers in the meadow re-
sumed their dance, the aspen leaves their merry
accompaniment, the young trees their graceful
swaying and bowing, and the fairies and bees
became as happy as before.

244

(Tftounfain (JJarite

A camp-fire anywhere in the wilderness ap-
peals strongly to the imagination. To me it was
most captivating in a little mountain meadow.
Even in a circle of friends it may shut out all
else, and with it one may return through "yes-
terday's seven thousand years." But to be
completely under its spell one must be alone
with its changing flame. Although I have
watched the camp-fire all alone in many scenes,
— in the wilderness, at the shore of the sea,
at timber-line, and on the desert in the shadow
of the prehistoric cactus, — nowhere has my im-
agination been more deeply stirred than it was
one night by my camp-fire in a little mountain
meadow. Around were the silent ranks of trees.
Here the world was new and the fire blazed
in primeval scenes. Its strange dance of lights
and shadows against the trees rebuilt for me the
past. Once more I felt the hopes and dreads
of savage life. Once more I knew the legends
that were told when the first camp-fire burned.

©trough in Qgwtoer T27ot£&

©trough in (gtmt ISotfr

/VVot until one year of drought did I realize
\*y how dependent the beaver is upon a con-
stant water-supply that is both fresh and am-
ple. A number of beaver colonies close to my
cabin were badly afflicted by this dry period.
I was already making special studies of beaver
ways among the forty-odd beaver colonies that
were within a few miles of my mountain home,
and toward the close of this droughty summer
I made frequent rounds among the beaver. By
the middle of September I confined these atten-
tions to five of the colonies that were most
affected by low water. Two were close to each
other, but upon separate brooks. The other
three were upon one tumbling streamlet.

Autumn is the busiest time of the year in
beaver world. Harvest is then gathered, the
dam is repaired, sometimes the pond is partly
dredged, and the house is made ready for win-
ter, — all before the pond freezes over. But

249

(Roc% (ttlounfatn Tl7onbetrfanb

drought had so afflicted these colonies that in
only one had any of the harvest been gathered.
This one I called the Cascade Colony. It was
the uppermost of the three that were dependent
upon this one stream. Among the five colonies
that I observed that autumn, this one had the
most desperate and tragic experience.

Toward the close of September the colonists
in each of the five colonies gave most of their
attention to the condition of their dam. Every
leak was stopped, and its water face was given
a thick covering of mud, most of which was
dredged from the bottom of the pond.

The beaver is intimately associated with
water. He is not a landsman, and only neces-
sity will cause him to go far from the water.
The water in a main beaver pond is usually three
or more feet deep, a depth needed all the year
around. Where nature has provided a place of
this kind that is close to his food-supply, the
beaver uses it; he will not trouble to build a dam
and form a pond of deep water unless this is
necessary. But deep water he must have; to
him it is a daily necessity in getting a living,

250

moving about the easiest way, and protecting
his life.

Early in October the first colony below the
Cascade had to leave the old home because of
the scarcity of water. There were seven or
eight of them, and all went down-stream and
joined another colony. From what I know of
the two colonies I judge that this was probably
a case of the old folks being forced to take refuge
with their fortunate children. Apparently they
were welcome.

A few days later the lowest of the three colo-
nies on the Cascade streamlet was also aban-
doned. Two days before leaving home the bea-
ver had commenced to harvest aspen for winter
food. A few aspens were standing partly cut;
a number untrimmed were lying where they
fell; several had been dragged into the pond.
But suddenly the beaver deserted the place.

The fifteen or sixteen in this colony went
down-stream and took possession of an old and
abandoned house and pond. They hastily re-
paired the dam and the house, and they had
only just begun to gather supplies for the win-

251

ter when the pond froze over. In the bottom
of the pond, below the ice, there may have
been an abundance of the tuberous growths of
the pond-lily or a supply of intruding willow
roots; both of these the beaver often dig out
even while the pond is frozen over. These bea-
ver in this old pond may have pieced out their
scanty food-supply with these roots and en-
dured until springtime; but I fear that at best
they had a close squeak.

One brook went dry and the beaver folk on
it moved up-stream. They left the dam well
repaired, a new house, and a pile of green aspen
cuttings in the pond. They were ready for win-
ter when the water-failure forced them to find a
new home. They scooped out a small basin by
a spring in the top of a moraine, used the mate-
rial for a dam, and into the pond thus formed
dragged a few aspens and willows. A winter
den was dug in the bank.

The colonists at the other low-water place
abandoned their home and moved three miles
down-stream. The tracks in the mud, a few bits
of fur, told too well a story of a tragedy during

252

©trough in $totott T£orft>

this enforced journey. While traveling along
the almost dry bed of the stream and at a point
where the water was too shallow to allow them
to dive and escape, two, and probably three, of
their number were captured by coyotes. The
survivors found a deep hole in a large channel,
and here they hurriedly accumulated a scanty
supply of green aspen. As winter came on, they
dug a burrow in the bank. This had a passage-
way which opened into the water about two
feet below the surface and close to their food-
supply.

The Cascade colonists held on for the winter.
Their pond was deep, and their careful repair
of the dam had enabled them to retain water
to the very top of it. However, beaver cannot
long endure water that is stagnant. This is
especially true in winter-time. A beaver house
is almost without ventilation, but its entrance
ways are full of water; the fresh water of the
pond appears to absorb impurities from the air
of the house. Apparently stagnant water will
not do this. Then, too, a stagnant pond freezes
much more rapidly than the waters of a pond

253

that are constantly stirred and aerated by the
inflow of fresh water. The Cascade colonists
entered the winter with an abundant food-
supply that was stored close to the house. The
pond was full of water, but it was becoming
stagnant. The drought continued and no snow
fell. This was another disadvantage to the col-
ony. If a pond is thickly blanketed with snow,
it does not freeze so deeply nor so rapidly
as when its surface is bare. By the middle of
October the pond was solidly frozen. Drought
and continued cold weather came and stayed.
Christmas week not a drop of water was flow-
ing from the pond and apparently none was
flowing into it. The ice was clear, and, the day
I called, there appeared to be digging going on
in the pond beneath the ice; close to the dam
the water was so roily that I could not see into
it.

On the first of February I sounded the ice in
a number of places. It seemed to be frozen sol-
idly to the bottom. This pond was circular in
outline, and the house stood near the centre in
about three feet of water. I climbed up on the

254

©trough in qgfeafctt T&orfo

house and stood there for some time. Com-
monly in the winter an inhabited beaver house
gives a scent to the small amount of air that
escapes from the top, and this tells of the pres-
ence of the living beaver inside. But I was un-
able to detect the slightest beaver scent in the
air. Apparently the water in the pond was
frozen from top to bottom; probably all the
beaver had perished, unless they had managed
to dig out, as they sometimes do, by tunneling
beneath the dam into the brook-channel below.
Many old beaver ponds have a subway in the
mud of the bottom. One opening is close to the
entrance of the house; the other at a point on
shore a few feet or several yards beyond the
edge of the pond. This offers a means of escape
from the pond in case it is frozen to the bottom
or if it be drained. A careful search failed to
reveal any tunnel, new or old, through which
these beaver might have escaped.

I determined to know their fate and went to
my cabin for an axe and a shovel. A hole was
cut in the ice midway between the beaver house
and the food-pile, — a pile of green aspen cut-

255

QJocfig (Wounfatn TUontorfanb

tings about twelve feet away from the house.
The pond was solidly frozen to the bottom, and
the beaver had all been caught. The entrances
to their house were full of ice. One beaver was
found at the food-pile, where he apparently
had been gnawing off a bark-covered stick. One
was dead between the food-pile and the house.
The others were dead by the entrance of an in-
complete tunnel beneath the dam, which they
apparently had been digging as a means of
escape when death overtook them. One had
died while gnawing at the ice-filled entrance of
the house. Inside of the house were the bodies
of two very old beaver and four young ones,
frozen solid.

The death of these little people, one and all,
in their home under the ice, may have come
from suffocation, from cold, from starvation, or
from a combination of all these; I do not know.
But my observations made it clear that the
drought was at the bottom of it all.

3n t$t TXtinUx &no)x>&

3n i%t IX&xstex ^noto*

5 OR years I wondered how big game managed
to live through the hard winters. How did
they obtain food while the snows lay deep?
Two winters of snowshoeing through the Rocky
Mountains as Snow Observer often brought me
in contact with wild game. These wanderings,
together with numerous winter camping-excur-
sions through the woods in other scenes, gave
me many a glimpse of the winter manners and
customs of big wild folk.

One autumn a heavy snow-storm caught me
in the mountains of Colorado without snow-
shoes. In getting out of this I found it easier to
wade down a shallow unfrozen stream than
to wallow through deep snow. Presently I came
upon a herd of deer who were also avoiding the
deep snow by using a water-way. They were
traveling along in the river and occasionally
paused to feed off the banks. Out all floundered

259

(Kocfy) (Wlounfain T3?onber£<mb

into the snow to let me pass. They reentered
the water before I was out of sight.

A few days later I returned on snowshoes to
see how they were faring. Deep snow had not
seriously concerned them. They were in a snow-
less place near the river. During the storm
an accumulation of sludgy, floating snow had
formed a temporary dam in the stream, which
raised the water and flooded a near-by flat.
Presently the dam went out, and the water ran
off; but the water carried with it some of the
snow, and it had dissolved much of the remain-
der. In this cleared place the deer were feeding
and loitering.

Wild life easily stands an ordinary storm and
usually manages to survive even a deep, long-
lying snow. The ability of big game to endure
storms must in part be due to their acquaint-
ance with every opportunity afforded by the
restricted district in which they live. Big wild
folk do not range afar nor at random, nor do
they drift about like gypsies. Most animals
range in a small locality, — spend their lives
in a comparatively small territory. They are

260

3n t§t Ttiinttx ^nolos

familiar with a small district and thus are able to
use it at all times to the best advantage. They
know where to find the earliest grass; where flies
are least troublesome; the route over which to
retreat in case of attack ; and where is the best
shelter from the storm.

With the coming of a snow-storm big game
commonly move to the most sheltered spot in
their district. This may or may not be close to
a food-supply. A usual place of refuge is in a
cover or sheltered spot on a sunny southern
slope, — a place, too, in which the snow will
first melt. Immediately after a storm there may
often be found a motley collection of local wild
folk in a place of this kind. Bunched, the big
game hope and wait. Unless the snow is ex-
tremely deep they become restless and begin
to scatter after two or three days.

There are a number of places in each locality
which may offer temporary, or even perma-
nent, relief to snow-hampered game. These
are open streams, flood-cleared flats, open spots
around springs, wind-cleared places, and open-
ings, large and small, made by snow-slides.

261

(RocRp QUounfatn T2?onber£an5

During long-lying deep snows the big game
generally use every local spot or opening of
vantage.

In many regions a fall of snow is followed by
days of fair weather. During these days most of
the snow melts; often the earth is almost free
of one snow before another fall comes. In places
of this kind the game have periods of ease. But
in vast territories the snow comes, deepens, and
lies deep over the earth for weeks. To endure
long-lying deep snows requires special habits
or methods. The yarding habit, more or less
intensely developed, is common with sheep, elk,
deer, and moose of all snowy lands.

The careful yarding habit of the moose is an
excellent method of triumphing over deep snow.
In early winter, or with the deepening snow, a
moose family proceed to a locality where food
is abundant; here they restrict themselves to
a small stamping-ground, — one of a stone's
throw or a few hundred feet radius. Constant
tramping and feeding in this limited area com-
pacts the snow in spaces and in all the trails
so that the animals walk on top of it. Each

262

3n tfyt 1X>inkv ^nolos

additional snow is in turn trampled to sustain-
ing compactness.

At first the low-growing herbage is eaten;
but when this is buried, and the animals are
raised up by added snow, they feed upon shrubs;
then on the willow or the birch tops, and some-
times on limbs well up in the trees, which the
platform of deeply accumulated snow enables
them to reach. Commonly moose stay all win-
ter in one yard. Sometimes the giving-out of
the food -supply may drive them forth. Then
they try to reach another yard. But deep snow
or wolves may overcome one or all on the way.

During one snowshoe trip through western
Colorado I visited seven deer-yards. One of
these had been attacked by wolves but prob-
ably without result. Apparently five of the
others had not as yet been visited by deadly
enemies. The seventh and most interesting
yard was situated in a deep gorge amid rugged
mountains. It was long and narrow, and in it
the deer had fed upon withered grass, plant
stalks, and willow twigs. All around the un-
d rifted snow lay deep. The limbless bases of

263

the spruces were set deep in snow, and their
lower limbs were pulled down and tangled in
it. These trees had the appearance of having
been pushed part way up through the snow. In
places the cliffs showed their bare brown sides.
Entire spruce groves had been tilted to sharp
angles by the slipping and dragging snow weight
on steep places; among them were tall spruces
that appeared like great feathered arrows that
had been shot into snowy steeps. The leafless
aspens attractively displayed their white and
greenish-white skin on limbs that were held
just above the snow.

With a curve, the yard shaped itself to the
buried stream. It lay between forested and
moderately steep mountains that rose high.
In this primeval winter scene the deer had faced
the slow-going snow in the primitive way. At
the upper end of the yard all the snow was
trampled to compactness, and over this ani-
mals could walk without sinking in. Firm, too,
were the surfaces of the much looped and oft
trodden trails. The trail nearest to the stream
passed beneath a number of beautiful snow-

264

3n t$t Ttiinht ^nolos

piled arches. These arches were formed of out-
reaching and interlacing arms of parallel growths
of willow and birch clusters. The stream gur-
gled beneath its storm window of rough ice.

I rounded the yard and at the lower end I
found the carcasses of the entire herd of deer, —
nine in all, — evidently recently killed by a moun-
tain lion. He had eaten but little of their flesh.
Wolves had not yet discovered this feast, but
a number of Rocky Mountain jays were there.
The dark spruces stood waiting! No air stirred.
Bright sunlight and bluish pine shadows rested
upon the glazed whiteness of the snow. The
flock of cheerful chickadees feeding through the
trees knew no tragedy.

The winter food of big game consists of dead
grass, shrubs, twigs, buds and bark of trees,
moss, and dry plants. At times grass dries or
cures before the frost comes. When thus cured
it retains much nutrition, — is, in fact, un-
raked hay. If blighted by frost it loses its flavor
and most of its food value.

During summer both elk and deer range high
on the mountains. With the coming of winter

265

(Roclfy QUounfain T2?onber(anb

they descend to the foothill region, where the
elk collect in large herds, living in yards in case
of prolonged deep snow. Deer roam in small
herds. Occasionally a herd of the older elk will
for weeks live in the comparatively deep snow
on northern slopes, — slopes where the snow
crusts least. Here they browse off alder and
even aspen bark.

The present congestion of elk in Jackson Hole
represents an abnormal condition brought about
by man. The winter feed on which they for-
merly lived is devoured by sheep or cattle during
the summer; a part of their former winter range
is mowed for hay ; they are hampered by fences.
As a result of these conditions many suffer and
not a few starve.

Wolves are now afflicting both wild and tame
herds in Jackson Hole. Apparently the wolves,
which formerly were unknown here in winter,
have been drawn thither by the food-supply
which weak or dead elk afford.

The regular winter home of wild sheep is
among the peaks above the limits of tree growth.
Unlike elk and deer, the mountain sheep is

266

3n t$t iDinkx ^>noxo0

found in the heights the year round. He may,
both in winter and summer, make excursions
into the lowlands, but during snowy times he
clings to the heights. Here he usually finds a
tableland or a ridge that has been freed of snow
by the winds. In these snow-free places he can
feed and loiter and sometimes look down on
unfortunate snow-bound deer and elk.

The bunching habit of big game during pe-
riods of extreme cold or deep snow probably con-
fers many benefits. It discourages the attacks
of carnivorous enemies, and usually renders
such attacks ineffective. Crowding also gives
the greatest warmth with the least burning of
fat fuel. The conservation of energy by storm-
bound animals is of the utmost importance. Cold
and snow make complicated endurance tests;
the animals must with such handicaps with-
stand enemies and sometimes live for days with
but little or nothing to eat.

Big game, on occasions, suffer bitterly through
a combination of misfortunes. Something may
prevent a herd reaching its best shelter, and it
must then endure the storm in poor quarters;

267

pursuit may scatter and leave each one stranded
alone in a bad place; in such case each will suffer
from lonesomeness, even though it endure the
cold and defy enemies. Most animals, even
those that are normally solitary, appear to want
society during emergencies.

A deep snow is sometimes followed by a brief
thaw, then by days of extreme cold. The snow
crusts, making it almost impossible for big game
to move, but encouragingly easy for wolves to
travel and to attack. Of course, long periods
separate these extremely deadly combinations.
Probably the ordinary loss of big game from
wolves and mountain lions is less than is imag-
ined.

Some years ago an old Ute Indian told me
that during a winter of his boyhood the snow
for weeks lay " four ponies deep " over the Rocky
Mountains, and that "most elk die, many
ponies die, wolves die, and Indian nearly die
too." A "Great Snow" of this kind is terrible
for wild folk.

Snow and cold sometimes combine to do their
worst. The snow covers everything deeply;

268

3n t$t Ttiinttx ^noxos

then follows an unbroken period of extreme
cold ; the Ice King is again enthroned ; the snow
fiendishly refuses to melt, and lies for weeks;
the endurance of most wild folk becomes ex-
hausted, and birds, herds, and wolves perish.
Similar calamities used occasionally to afflict
our primitive ancestors.

Over the vast Northwest a feature of the cli-
mate is the winter-annihilating Chinook wind.
This occasionally saves the people of the wilds
when other relief is impossible. The snowy earth
is quickly transformed by this warm, dry wind.
In a few hours conditions become summer-like.
Fortunately, the Chinook often follows a bliz-
zard. Many a time at the eleventh hour it has
dramatically saved the waiting, suffering birds
and rescued the snow-buried and starving folk
of the wilds.

The beaver and the bear are often benefited
by the deep snows which afflict their wild neigh-
bors. During the prolonged hibernating sleep,
the bear does not eat, but he commonly needs
a thick snowy blanket to keep him comfortable.
The beaver has his winter stores on the bottom

269

(KocRj) QHounfcun TJ?onberfanb

of the pond beneath the ice. These he reaches
from his house by swimming beneath the ice
from the house to the food-pile. If the ice is
not covered by snow, it may, during a cold
winter, freeze thickly, even to the bottom, and
thus cause a starving time in the beaver colony.

Deep snow appears not to trouble the "stu-
pidest animal in the woods," the porcupine.
A deeper snow is for him a higher platform from
which the bark on the tree may be devoured.
Rabbits, too, appear to fare well during deep
snow. This uplift allows them a long feast
among the crowded, bud-fruited bush-tops at
which they have so often looked in vain.

The chipmunk is not concerned with ground-
hog day. Last summer he filled his underground
granaries with nuts and seeds, and subways
connect his underground winter quarters with
these stores. But heavy snows, with their excess
of water, flood him out of winter quarters in
spring earlier than he planned.

One March at the close of a wet snow-fall I
went out into a near-by pine grove to see the
squirrels. One descended from a high hole to

270

3n i$t HJinttx ^noxos

the snow and without trouble located and bored
down through the snow to his cone-deposit.
, With difficulty he climbed up through the heavy
snow with a cone. He did not enjoy floundering
through the clinging snow to the tree-trunk.
But at last up he started with a snow-laden cone,
in search of a dry seat on which to eat. After
climbing a few feet he tumbled back into the
unpleasant snow. In some manner the wet
snow on the tree-trunk had caused his downfall.
With temper peppery he gathered himself up,
and for a moment glared at me as though about
to blame me for his troubles. Then, muttering,
he climbed up the tree. Sometimes the chip-
munk, and the squirrel also, indulge in hiber-
nating periods of sleep despite their ample stores
of convenient food.

The ptarmigan is preeminently the bird of
the snows; it is the Eskimo of the bird world.
It resides in the land realm of the Farthest
North and also throughout the West upon high
mountain-tops. In the heights it lives above
the limits of tree growth, close to snow-drifts
that never melt, and in places above the alti-

271

(g.o&% (Mountain TbonUthn*

tude of twelve thousand feet. It is a permanent
resident of the heights, and apparently only
starvation will drive it to the lowlands. Its win-
ter food consists of seeds of alpine plants and
the buds of dwarf arctic willow. This willow
is matted, dwarfed, and low-growing. When
drifted over, the ptarmigan burrow into the
snow and find shelter beneath its flattened
growth. Plere they are in reach of willow buds.

Buds are freely eaten by many kinds of birds;
they are the staff of life of the ptarmigan and
often of the grouse. They are sought by rabbits
and go in with the browse eaten by big game.
Buds of trees and shrubs are a kind of fruit,
a concentrated food, much of the nature of nuts
or tubers.

The cheerful water-ouzel, even during the
winter, obtains much of its food from the bot-
tom of brooks and lakes. The ouzel spends
many winter nights in nooks and niches in the
bank between the ice and the water. This is a
strange place, though one comparatively safe
and sheltered. In getting into the water beneath
the ice, the ouzel commonly finds opportunity

272

3n i$t Tbinkx ^noU)0

at the outlet or the inlet of the lake; sometimes
through an opening maintained by spring water.
There are usually many entrances into the
waters of a frozen brook, — openings by cas-
cades and the holes that commonly remain in
the ice over swift waters. Excessive snow or
extreme cold may close all entrances and thus
exclude the ouzel from both food and water.
Down the mountain or southward the ouzel
then goes.

Woodpeckers and chickadees fare well despite
any combination of extreme cold or deep snow.
For the most part their food is the larvae or the
eggs that are deposited here and there in the
tree by hundreds of kinds of insects and para-
sites which afflict trees. Nothing except a heavy
sleet appears to make these food-deposits inac-
cessible.

Most birds spend the winter months in the
South. But bad conditions may cause resident
birds and animals to migrate, even in midwin-
ter. Extremely unfavorable winters in British
Columbia will cause many birds that regularly
winter in that country to travel one or two

^73

(Rod)? (Mountain T&onberfan©

thousand miles southward into the mountains
of Colorado. Among the species which thus
modify their habits are the red crossbill, the red-
poll, the Lapland longspur, and the snowy owl.

After all, there are points in common between
the animal life of the wild and the human life
of civilization. Man and the wild animals alike
find their chief occupation in getting food or in
keeping out of danger. Change plays a large
part in the life of each, and abnormal conditions
affect them both. Let a great snow come in
early winter, and both will have trouble, and
both for a time may find the struggle for exist-
ence severe.

The primitive man slaughtered storm-bound
animals, but civilized man rescues them. A
deep snow offers a good opportunity for more
intimate acquaintance with our wild neighbors.
And snowy times, too, are good picture-taking
periods. In snowy times, if our wild neighbors
already respect us, tempting food and encour-
aging hunger will place big, shy, and awkward
country fellows and nervous birds close to the
camera and close to our hearts.

(my Cfltpmuna tatkte

(ttty <D§ipmun& Cattm

Oft bout a score of chipmunks have their homes
\^y in my yard. They are delightfully tame
and will climb upon my head or shoulder, eat
nuts from my hand, or go into my pockets after
them. At times three or four make it lively for
me. One day I stooped to give one some pea-
nuts. While he was standing erect and taking
them from my fingers, a strange dog appeared.
At once all the chipmunks in the yard gave a
chattering, scolding alarm-cry and retreated to
their holes. The one I was feeding dashed up
into my coat pocket. Standing up with fore
paws on the edge of the pocket, and with head
thrust out, he gave the dog a tempestuous scold-
ing. This same chipmunk often played upon
the back of Scotch, my collie. Occasionally he
stood erect on Scotch to sputter out an alarm-
cry and to look around when something aroused
his suspicions.

Chipmunks are easily tamed and on short
277

(Roc% (Tftounfotn Ttfotrterfonb

acquaintance will come to eat from one's hand.
Often they come into my cabin for food or for
paper to use for bedding. Occasionally one will
sit erect upon my knee or shoulder, sometimes
looking off intently into the yard ; at other times
apparently seeing nothing, but wrapped in medi-
tation. More often, however, they are storing
peanuts in their pouches or deliberately eating a
kernel. Rarely is the presence of one agreeable
to another, and when four or five happen to call
at the same time, they sometimes forget their
etiquette and I am the centre of a chipmunk
scrimmage.

Once five callers came, each stringing in be-
hind another. Just as the fifth came in the door,
there was a dispute among the others and one
started to retreat. Evidently he did not want
to go, for he retreated away from the open door.
As number two started in pursuit of him, num-
ber three gave chase to number two. After
them started number four, and the fifth one
after all the others. The first one, being closely
pressed and not wanting to leave the room, ran
round the centre table, and in an instant all

278

ENTERTAIN' INC. A CHIPMUNK CALL! R

five were racing single file round the table. After
the first round they became excited and each
one went his best. The circle they were follow-
ing was not large, and the floor was smooth.
Presently the rear legs of one skidded comically,
then the fore feet of another; and now and then
one lost his footing and rolled entirely over, then
arose, looking surprised and foolish, but with a
leap entered the circle and was again at full speed.

I enjoy having them about, and spend many
a happy hour watching them or playing with
them. They often make a picnic-ground of my
porch, and now and then one lies down to rest
upon one of the log seats, where, outstretched,
with head up and one fore paw extended lei-
surely upon the log, he looks like a young lion.

Often they climb up and scamper over the
roof of my cabin ; but most of their time on the
roof is spent in dressing their fur or enjoying
long, warm sun baths. Frequently they mount
the roof early in the morning, even before sun-
rise. I am sometimes awakened at early dawn
by a chipmunk mob that is having a lively time
upon the roof.

279

(Roc8j> (mountain T3?on*erfan&

In many things they are persistent. Once I
closed the hole that one had made in a place
where I did not want it. I filled the hole full of
earth. Inside of two hours it was reopened.
Then I pounded it full of gravel, but this was
dug out. I drove a stake into the hole. A new
hole was promptly made alongside the stake.
I poured this full of water. Presently out came
a wet and angry chipmunk. This daily drowning
out by water was continued for more than a
week before the chipmunk gave it up and opened
a hole about thirty feet distant.

For eight years I kept track of a chipmunk
by my cabin. She lived in a long, crooked under-
ground hole, or tunnel, which must have had a
total length of nearly one hundred feet. It ex-
tended in a semicircle and could be entered at
three or four places through holes that opened
upon the surface. Each of these entrance holes
was partly concealed in a clump of grass by a
cluster of plants or a shrub.

I have many times examined the under-
ground works of the chipmunk. Some of these
examinations were made by digging, and others

280

(m? Cgtpmunft Catttte

I traced as they were exposed in the making of
large irrigation ditches. The earth which is dug
from these tunnels is ejected from one or more
holes, which are closed when the tunnel is com-
pleted. Around the entrance holes there is noth-
ing to indicate or to publish their presence; and
often they are well concealed.

These tunnels are from forty to one hundred
feet long, run from two to four feet beneath
the surface, and have two or more entrances.
Here and there is a niche or pocket in the side
of the tunnel. These niches are from a few
inches to a foot in diameter and in height. In
one or more of these the chipmunk sleeps, and
in others is stored his winter food-supply. He
uses one of these pockets for a time as a sleeping-
place, then changes to another. This change
may enable the chipmunk to hold parasites in
check. The fact that he has a number of sleep-
ing-places and also that in summer he frequently
changes his bedding, indicates that these efforts
in sanitation are essential for avoiding parasites
and disease.

Commonly the bedding is grass, straw, and
281

leaves; but in my yard the chipmunks eagerly
seize upon a piece of paper or a handkerchief.
I am compelled to keep my eyes open when-
ever they come into the cabin, for they do not
hesitate to seize upon unanswered letters or
incomplete manuscripts. In carrying off paper
the chipmunk commonly tears off a huge piece,
crumples it into a wad, and, with this sticking
from his mouth, hurries away to his bedcham-
ber. It is not uncommon to see half a dozen at
once in the yard, each going his own way with
his clean bed-linen.

Chipmunks take frequent dust and sun baths,
but I have never seen one bathe in water. They
appear, however, to drink water freely. One
will sip water several times daily.

In the mountains near me the chipmunks
spend from four to seven months of each year
underground. I am at an altitude of nine thou-
sand feet. Although during the winter they
indulge in long periods of what may be called
hibernating sleep, they are awake a part of the
time and commonly lay in abundant stores for
winter. In the underground granaries of one

282

(flip <C0tpmuna tatfae

I once found about a peck and a half of weed
seeds. Even during the summer the chipmunk
occasionally does not come forth for a day or
two. On some of these occasions I have found
that they were in a heavy sleep in their beds.

These in my yard are fed so freely upon pea-
nuts that they have come to depend upon them
for winter supplies. They prefer raw to roasted
peanuts. The chipmunk near my cabin some-
times becomes a little particular and will occa-
sionally reject peanuts that are handed to her
with the shell on. Commonly, however, she
grabs the nut with both fore paws, then, stand-
ing erect, rapidly bites away the shell until the
nut is reached. This she usually forces into her
cheek pocket with both hands. Her cheek
pouches hold from twelve to twenty of these.
As soon as these are filled she hurries away to
deposit her stores in her underground granary.
One day she managed to store twenty-two, and
her cheek pouches stood out abnormally! With
this "swelled" and uncouth head she hurried
away to deposit the nuts in her storehouse, but
when she reached the hole her cheeks were so

283

(Roc% Qftounfam TQ?onbetrfon*>

distended that she was unable to enter. After
trying again and again she began to enlarge the
hole. This she presently gave up. Then she re-
jected about one third of the nuts, entered, and
stored the remainder. In a few minutes she was
back for more. One day she made eleven round
trips in fifty-seven minutes. Early one autumn
morning a coyote, in attempting to reach her,
dug into her granary and scattered the nuts
about. After sending him off I gathered up
three quarts of shelled nuts and left about as
many more scattered through the earth! Over
these the jays and magpies squabbled all day.

One day a lady who was unsympathetic with
chipmunks was startled by one of the young-
sters, who scrambled up her clothes and perched
upon her head. Greatly excited, she gave wild
screams. The young chipmunk was in turn
frightened, and fled in haste. He took consola-
tion with his mother several yards away. She,
standing erect, received him literally with open
arms. He stood erect with one arm upon her
shoulder, while she held one arm around him.
They thus stood for some seconds, he screech-

284

(flip CfltpmunR CaUtte

ing a frightened cry, while she, with a subdued
muttering, endeavored to quiet him.

Once, my old chipmunk, seeing me across the
yard, came bounding to me. Forgetting, in her
haste, to be vigilant, she ran into a family of
weasels, two old and five young ones, who were
crossing the yard. Instantly, and with lion-like
ferocity, the largest weasel leaped and seized the
chipmunk by the throat. With a fiendish jerk
of his head the weasel landed the chipmunk
across his shoulders and, still holding it by the
throat, he forced his way, half swimming, half
floundering, through a swift brook which crossed
the yard. His entire family followed him. Most
savagely did he resent my interference when I
compelled him to drop the dead chipmunk.

The wise coyote has a peculiar habit each
autumn of feasting upon chipmunks. Com-
monly the chipmunks retire for the winter be-
fore the earth is frozen, or before it is frozen
deeply. Apparently they at once sink into a
hibernating sleep. Each autumn, shortly after
the chipmunks retire, the coyotes raid all local-
ities in my neighborhood in which digging is

285

good. Scores of chipmunks are dug out and de-
voured. Within a quarter of a mile of my cabin
one October night forty-two holes were dug.
Another night fifty-four holes were dug near
by. In a number of these a few scattered drops
of blood showed that the coyote had made a
capture. In one week within a few miles of my
cabin I found several hundred freshly dug holes.
Many holes were dug directly down to the gran-
ary where the stores were scattered about; and
others descended upon the pocket in which the
chipmunk was asleep. In a few places the dig-
ging followed along the tunnel for several yards,
and in others the coyote dug down into the
earth and then tunneled along the chipmunk's
tunnel for several feet before reaching the little
sleeper.

So far as I know, each old chipmunk lives by
itself. It is, I think, rare for one to enter the
underground works of another. Each appears
to have a small local range upon the surface,
but this range is occasionally invaded by a
neighboring chipmunk. This invasion is always
resented, and often the invader is angrily

(Nip <C0tptmm6 tattete

ejected by the local claimant of the terri-
tory.

In my locality the young are born during the
first week in June. The five years that I kept
track of the mother chipmunk near my cabin,
she usually brought the youngsters out into
the sunlight about the middle of June. Three
of these years there were five youngsters. One
year the number was four, and another year it
was six. About the middle of July the young
were left to fight the battle of life alone. They
were left in possession of the underground house
in which they were born, and the mother went
to another part of the yard, renovated another
underground home, and here laid up supplies
for the winter.

A few days before the mother leaves the
youngsters, they run about and find most of
their food. One year, a day or two before the
one by my cabin bade her children good-bye,
she brought them — or, at any rate, the children
came with her — to the place where we often
distributed peanuts. The youngsters, much
lighter in color, and less distinctly marked than

287

(Roc8p (Wounfotn TDoritex fan*

the mother, as well as much smaller, were amus-
ingly shy, and they made comic shows in trying
to eat peanuts. They could not break through
the shell. If offered a shelled nut, they were as
likely to bite the end of your finger as the nut.
They had not learned which was which. With
their baby teeth they could eat but little of the
nut, but they had the storing instinct and after
a struggle managed to thrust one or two of the
nuts into their cheek pockets.

The youngsters, on being left to shift for
themselves, linger about their old home for a
week or longer, then scatter, each apparently
going off to make an underground home for
himself. The house may be entirely new or it
may be an old one renovated.

I do not know just when the mother returns
to her old home. Possibly the new home is
closely connected with the one she has tempo-
rarily left, and it may be that during the au-
tumn or the early spring she digs a short tunnel
which unites them. The manner of this aside,
I can say that each summer the mother that I
watched, on retiring from the youngsters, car-

288

(flip <C0tpmuna Catttte

ried supplies into a hole which she had not used
before, and the following spring the youngsters
came forth from the same hole, and presum-
ably from the same quarters, that the children
of preceding years had used.

Chipmunks feed upon a variety of plants.
The leaves, seeds, and roots are eaten. During
bloom time they feast upon wild flowers. Often
they make a dainty meal off the blossoms of
the fringed blue gentian, the mariposa lily, and
the harebell. Commonly, in gathering flowers,
the chipmunk stands erect on hind feet, reaches
up with one or both hands, bends down the
stalk, leisurely eats the blossoms, and then pulls
down another. The big chipmunk, however, has
some gross food habits. I have seen him eating
mice, and he often catches grasshoppers and
flies. It is possible that he may rob birds' nests,
but this is not common and I have never seen
him do so. However, the bluebirds, robins, and
red-winged blackbirds near me resent his close
approach. A chipmunk which has unwittingly
climbed into a tree or traveled into a territory
close to the nest of one of these birds receives

289

(Rocfy) (THounfoin Tfronbetrfanb

a beating from the wings of the birds and many
stabs from their bills before he can retreat to a
peaceful zone. Many times I have seen birds
battering him, sometimes repeatedly knocking
him heels over head, while he, frightened and
chattering, was doing his best to escape.

There are five species of chipmunks in Colo-
rado. Two of these are near me, — the big chip-
munk and the busy chipmunk. The latter is
much smaller, shyer, and more lively than the
former and spends a part of its time in the tree-
tops ; while the big, although it sometimes climbs,
commonly keeps close to the earth.

Among their numerous enemies are coyotes,
wild-cats, mountain lions, bears, hawks, and
owls. They appear to live from six to twelve
years. The one near my place I watched for
eight years. She probably was one or more
years of age when I first saw her.

Almost every day in summer a number of
children come, some of them for miles, to watch
and to feed my chipmunks. The children enjoy
this as keenly as I have ever seen them enjoy
anything. Surely the kindly sympathies which

290

(flip CfltpmunG Cofferer

are thus aroused in the children, and the de-
lightful lesson in natural history which they
get, will give a helpful educational stimulus, and
may be the beginning of a sympathetic interest
in every living thing.

($ $eaft 6g f^e (pfctin*

® qpea^ 6y $e (pemn0

(P

|IKe's Peak rises boldly from the plains, go-
ing steeply up into the sky a vertical mile
and a half. There is no middle distance or fore-
ground; no terraced or inclined approach. A
spectator may thus stand close to its foot, at
an altitude of six thousand feet, and have a
commanding view of the eight thousand feet of
slopes and terraces which culminate in the sum-
mit, 14,110 feet above the sea. Its steep, abrupt
ascent makes it imposing and impressive. It
fronts the wide plains a vast broken tower.
The typical high peak stands with other high
peaks in the summit of a mountain-range. Miles
of lesser mountains lie between its summit and
the lowlands. Foothills rise from the edge of
the lowland; above these, broken benches, ter-
race beyond terrace, each rising higher until
the summit rises supreme. With Pike's Peak
this typical arrangement is reversed.

Pike's Peak probably is the most intimately

295

Q$oc%> (mountain 1(?otrt>ttf<mb

known high mountain. It has given mountain-
top pleasure to more people than any other
fourteen thousand foot summit of the earth.
One million persons have walked upon its sum-
mit, and probably two million others have
climbed well up its slopes. Only a few thousand
climbers have reached the top of Mont Blanc.
Pike's is a peak for the multitude.

Climbing it is comparatively easy. It stands
in a mild, arid climate, and has scanty snowfall ;
there are but few precipitous walls, no danger-
ous ice-fields; and up most of its slopes any one
may ramble. One may go up on foot, on horse-
back, in a carriage, or by railroad, or even by
automobile. It is not only easy of ascent, but
also easy of access. It is on the edge of the plains,
and a number of railroads cross its very foot.

This peak affords a unique view, — wide
plains to the east, high peaks to the west. Sixty
thousand or more square miles are visible from
the summit. It towers far above the plains,
whose streams, hills, and level spaces stretch
away a vast flat picture. To the west it com-
mands a wondrous array of mountain topog-

296

raphy, — a two-hundred-mile front of shat-
tered, snow-drifted peaks.

The peak is an enormous broken pyramid,
dotted with high-perched lakes, cut with plung-
ing streams, broken by canons, skirted with
torn forests, old and young, and in addition
is beautiful with bushes, meadows, and wild
flowers. The major part of the peak's primeval
forest robe was destroyed by fire a half-century
ago. Many ragged, crag-torn areas of the old
forest, of a square mile or less, are connected
with young growths from thirty to sixty years
old. Much of this new growth is aspen. From
the tree-studies which I have made, I learn
that two forest fires caused most of the destruc-
tion. The annual rings in the young growth,
together with the rings in the fire-scarred trees
which did not perish, indicate that the older
and more extensive of these fires wrapped most
of the peak in flames and all of it in smoke dur-
ing the autumn of 1850. The other fire was in
1880.

Pike's Peak exhibits a number of scenic at-
tractions and is bordered by other excellent ones.

297

(Roclfy (tttounfain TUon^rfanb

Near are the Royal Gorge, Cripple Creek, and
the fossil-beds at Florissant. The Garden of the
Gods, Manitou Mineral Springs, Glen Eyrie,
Crystal Park, the Cave of the Winds, and Wil-
liams, Ruxton, and South Cheyenne Canons
are some of its attractions.

The fossil-beds at Florissant are one of the
most famous of fossil-deposits. Here was an old
Tertiary lake-basin. In the deposit which filled
it — a deposit of fine volcanic sand or ash, sedi-
ment, and other debris — is a wonderful array
of fossilized plants and insects of a past age.
All are strangely preserved for us in stone. A
part of the lake appears to have been filled by
a volcanic catastrophe which overwhelmed ani-
mals, plants, and insects. Whole and in frag-
ments, they are lying where they fell. Here have
been found upwards of one hundred recogniz-
able plants, eleven vertebrate animals, and a
few hundred insects. Among the fossil trees
are the narrow-leaf cottonwood, the ginkgo,
the magnolia, the incense cedar, and the giant
redwood. Water erosion through the ages has
cut deeply into these fossil-beds and worn and

298

washed away their treasures. This deposit has
been but little studied. But what it has yielded,
together with the magnitude of the unexamined
remainder, makes one eager concerning the ex-
tent and the nature of the treasures which still
lie buried in it.

Helen Hunt, whose books helped awaken the
American people to the injustice done the In-
dian and to an appreciation of the scenic gran-
deur of the West, lived for many years at the
foot of this peak. Much of her writing was done
from commanding points on the peak. She was
temporarily buried on Cheyenne Mountain, and
on her former grave has accumulated a large
cairn of stones, contributed singly by apprecia-
tive pilgrims.

South Cheyenne Canon, like Yosemite, gives
a large, clear, and pleasing picture to the mind.
This is due to the individuality and the artistic
grouping of the beauty and grandeur of the
canon. The canon is so narrow, and its high
walls so precipitous, that it could justly be called
an enormous cleft. At one point the walls are
only forty feet apart ; between these a road and

299

$oc% (mountain 7£ont»<srfanb

a swift, clear stream are crowded. Inside the
entrance stand the two "Pillars of Hercules."
These magnificent rock domes rise nearly one
thousand feet, and their steep, tree-dotted walls
are peculiarly pleasing and impressive. Pros-
pect Dome is another striking rock point in
this canon. The canon ends in a colossal cirque,
or amphitheatre, about two hundred and fifty
feet deep. Down one side of this a stream makes
its seven white zigzag jumps.

Pike's Peak wins impressiveness by standing
by itself. Cheyenne Canon is more imposing by
being alone, — away from other canons. This
canon opens upon the plains. It is a canon that
would win attention anywhere, but its situation
is a most favorable one. Low altitude and a
warm climate welcome trees, grass, bushes, and
many kinds of plants and flowers. These cling
to every break, spot, ledge, terrace, and niche,
and thereby touch and decorate the canon's
grim and towering walls with lovely beauty.
Walls, water, and verdure — water in pools and
falls, rocks in cliffs, terraces, and domes, grass
and flowers on slopes and terraces, trees and

300

(g (peaft 6p $t (pfatne

groves, — a magnificence of rocks, a richness of
verdure, and the charm of running water —
all unite in a picturesque association which
makes a glorious and pleasing sunken garden.

It is probable that Pike's Peak was discov-
ered by Spanish explorers either in 1598 or in
1601. These are the dates of separate exploring
expeditions which entered Colorado from the
south and marched up the plains in near view
of this peak. The discovery is usually accred-
ited, however, to Lieutenant Pike, who caught
sight of it on the 15th day of November, 1806.
Pike's journal of this date says: "At two o'clock
in the afternoon I thought I could distinguish
a mountain to our right which appeared like a
small blue cloud; viewed it with a spyglass and
was still more confirmed in my conjecture. . . .
In half an hour it appeared in full view before us.
When our small party arrived on a hill, they
with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexi-
can Mountains." It appears not to have been
called Pike's Peak until about twenty-five years
after Pike first saw it. He spoke of it as the
Mexican Mountains and as Great Peak. The

301

(RocGg (ttlounfoin Tftonberfanb

first ascent by white men was made July 14,
1 8 19, by members of Lieutenant Long's explor-
ing expedition. For a number of years this
peak was called James Peak, in honor of the
naturalist in the Long exploring party.

Pike's Peak has what Montesquieu calls the
"most powerful of all empires, the empire of
climate." It stands most of the time in the sun.
All over it the miner and the prospector have
searched for gold, mutilating it here and there
with holes. Fires have scarred the sides, and
pasturing has robbed it of flowers and verdure.
The reputed discovery of gold at its base started
a flood of gold-seekers west with "Pike's Peak
or bust " enthusiasm. But the climate and scen-
ery of this peak attract people who come for
pleasure and to seek for health. It has thus
brought millions of dollars into Colorado, and
it will probably continue to attract people who
seek pleasure and refreshment and who receive
in exchange higher values than they spend.
Pike's Peak is a rich asset.

The summit of Pike's Peak is an excellent
place to study the effect of altitude upon low-

302

land visitors. Individual observations and the
special investigations of scientific men show
that altitude has been a large, unconscious
source of nature-faking. During the summer
of 191 1 a number of English and American
scientists, the "Anglo-American Expedition,"
spent five weeks on Pike's Peak, making spe-
cial studies of the effects of altitude. Their in-
vestigations explode the theory that altitude
is a strain upon the heart, or injurious to the
system. These men concluded that the heart is
subjected to no greater strain in high altitudes
than at sea-level, except under the strain of
physical exertion. The blood is richer in high
altitudes. For every hundred red corpuscles
found at sea-level there are in Colorado Springs,
at six thousand feet, one hundred and ten; and
on the summit of Pike's Peak, from one hundred
and forty to one hundred and fifty-four.

"The danger to people suffering from heart
trouble coming into high altitudes is grossly ex-
aggerated," says Dr. Edward C. Schneider, one
of the Anglo-American expedition. "The rate
of circulation is not materially increased. The

303

(Roc%> (mountain Tt>ontor(<m*>

blood-pressure on the Peak is not increased; it
is even lowered. The heart — if a person exer-
cises — may beat a little faster but it does not
pump any more blood. The pulse is a little more
rapid. If a man suffering from heart trouble
rode up the peak on a train, remained in his
seat, and did not exert himself physically, his
heart would not beat a bit faster at the summit
than when he left Manitou. But if he walked
about on the summit there would be a change,
for the exercise would make the heart work
harder." But exercise is not injurious; it is bene-
ficial.

As I found in guiding on Long's Peak, the
rarefied air of the heights was often stimulating,
especially to the tongue. Rarefied air is likened
by the scientists to "laughing-gas" and fur-
nishes a plausible explanation of the queerness
which characterizes the action of many people
on mountain-summits. "We saw many visitors
at the summit," said Dr. Schneider in explain-
ing this phase, "who appeared to be intoxicated.
But there was no smell of liquor on their breath.
They were intoxicated with rarefied atmosphere,

3°4

not with alcohol. The peculiar effects of laugh-
ing-gas and carbon-monoxide gas on people are
due to the lack of oxygen in the gas; and the
same applies to the air at high altitudes."

The summit of Pike's Peak is roomy and com-
paratively level, and is composed of broken
granite, many of the pieces being of large size.
A stone house stands upon the top. In this
for many years was a government weather-
observer. A weather station has just been re-
established on its summit. This will be one of
a line of high weather stations extending across
the continent. This unique station should con-
tribute continuously to the weather news and
steadily add to the sum of climatic knowledge.

This one peak has on its high and broken
slopes a majority of the earth's climatic zones,
and a numerous array of the earth's countless
kinds of plant and animal life. One may in two
hours go from base to summit and pass through
as many life zones as though he had traveled
northward into the Arctic Circle. Going from
base to summit, one would start in the Upper
Sonoran Zone, pass through the Transition,

305

(Rocfy> (piounfain TDonberfanb

Canadian, and Hudsonian Zones, and enter the
Arctic-Alpine Zone. The peak has a number of
places which exhibit the complexity of climatic
zones. In a deep canon near Minnehaha Falls,
two zones may be seen side by side on opposite
sides of a deep, narrow canon. The north side
of the canon, exposed to the sun, has such plants
as are found in the Transition Zone, while the
cool south side has an Hudsonian flora. Here is
almost an actual contact of two zones that out-
side the mountains are separated by approxi-
mately two thousand miles.

The varied climate of this peak makes a
large appeal to bird-life. Upward of one hun-
dred species are found here. People from every
part of the Union are here often startled by
the presence of birds which they thought were
far away at home. At the base the melodious
meadowlark sings; along the streams on the
middle slopes lives the contented water-ouzel.
Upon the heights are the ptarmigan and the
rosy finch. Often the golden eagle casts his
shadow upon all these scenes. The robin is here,
and also the bluebird, bluer, too, than you have

306

® #w8 6p $t (ptaine

ever seen him. The Western evening grosbeak,
a bird with attractive plumage and pleasing
manners, often winters here. The brilliant lazuli
bunting, the Bullock oriole, the red-shafted
flicker, and the dear and dainty goldfinch are
present in summer, along with mockingbirds,
wrens, tanagers, thrushes, and scores of other
visitants.

A few migratory species winter about the
foot of the peak. In summer they fly to the
upper slopes and nest and raise their young
in the miniature arctic prairies of the heights.
With the coming of autumn all descend by easy
stages to the foot. The full distance of this ver-
tical migration could be covered in an hour's
flight. Many of the north-and-south-migrating
birds travel a thousand times as far as these
birds of vertical migration.

The big game which formerly ranged this
peak included buffalo, deer, elk, mountain sheep,
the grizzly, the black bear, the mountain lion,
the fox, the coyote, and the wolf. Along the
descending streams, through one vertical mile
of altitude, were beaver colonies, terrace upon

307

terrace. No one knows how many varieties of
wild flowers each year bloom in all the Peak's
various ragged zones, but there are probably
no fewer than two thousand. Along with these
are a number of species of trees. Covering the
lower part of the mountain are growths of Cot-
tonwood, Douglas spruce, yellow pine, white
fir, silver spruce, and the Rocky Mountain birch.
Among the flowering plants are the columbine,
shooting-star, monkshood, yucca or Spanish
bayonet, and iris. Ascending, one finds the win-
tergreen, a number of varieties of polemonium-,
the paintbrush, the Northern gentian, the West-
ern yarrow, and the mertensia. At timber-line,
at the altitude of about eleven thousand five
hundred feet, are Engelmann spruce, arctic
willow, mountain birch, foxtail pine, and aspen.
At timber-line, too, are the columbine, the
paintbrush, and a number of species of phlox.
There are no trees in the zone which drapes the
uppermost two thousand feet of the summit,
but in this are bright flowers, — cushion pinks,
the spring beauty, the alpine gentian, the moun-
tain buckwheat, the white and yellow mountain

308

avens, the arctic harebell, the marsh-marigold,
the stonecrop, and the forget-me-not. One sum-
mer I found a few flowers on the summit.

Isolation probably rendered the summit of
this peak less favorable for snow-accumulation
during the Ice Age than the summits of un-
isolated peaks of equal altitude. During the last
ice epoch, however, it carried glaciers, and some
of these extended down the slopes three miles
or farther. These degraded the upper slopes,
moved this excavated material toward the bot-
tom, and spread it in a number of places. There
are five distinct cuplike hollows or depressions
in this peak that were gouged by glaciers. The
one lying between Cameron's Cone and the sum-
mit is known as the " Crater." A part of this is
readily seen from Colorado Springs. Far up the
slopes are Lake Moraine and Seven Lakes, all of
glacial origin.

The mountain mass which culminates in
Pike's Peak probably originated as a vast up-
lift. Internal forces appear to have severed this
mass from its surroundings and slowly upraised
it seven thousand or more feet. The slow up-

309

(£ocfy> QHounfain ItJonbettanfc

rising probably ended thousands of years ago.
Since that time, disintegration, frost, air, and
stream erosion have combined to sculpture this
great peak. Pike's Peak might well be made a
National Park.

Tt$t Conmyyxtion of ^cenerg

Z§t Cott0emfton of

^Hhe comparative merits of the Alps and the
^^ Rocky Mountains for recreation purposes
are frequently discussed. Roosevelt and others
have spoken of the Colorado Rockies as "The
Nation's Playground." This Colorado region
really is one vast natural park. The area of it
is three times that of the Alps. The scenery of
these Colorado Rocky Mountains, though un-
like that of the Alps, is equally attractive and
more varied. Being almost free from snow, the
entire region is easily enjoyed; a novice may
scale the peaks without the ice and snow that
hamper and endanger even the expert climbers
in the icy Alps. The Alps wear a perpetual ice-
cap down to nine thousand feet. The inhabited
zone in Colorado is seven thousand feet higher
than that zone in Switzerland. At ten thou-
sand feet and even higher, in Colorado, one finds

313

(Koc8g (mountain Ttfonbttfonb

railroads, wagon-roads, and hotels. In Switzer-
land there are but few hotels above five thou-
sand feet, and most people live below the three-
thousand-foot mark. Timber-line in Colorado
is five thousand feet farther up the heights than
in Switzerland. The Centennial State offers a
more numerous and attractive array of wild
flowers, birds, animals, and mineral springs
than the land of William Tell. The Rocky
Mountain sheep is as interesting and audacious
as the chamois; the fair phlox dares greater
heights than the famed edelweiss. The climate
of the Rocky Mountains is more cheerful than
that of the Alps; there are more sunny days,
and while the skies are as blue as in Switzerland,
the air is drier and more energizing.

But the attractions in the Alps are being pre-
served, while the Rocky Mountains are being
stripped of their scenery. Yet in the Rocky
Mountains there are many areas rich in perish-
able attractions which might well be reserved
as parks so that their natural beauties could be
kept unmarred. It is to be hoped that the grow-
ing interest in American scenery will bring this

3H

1&§t Conservation of ^§>ceuerj>

about before these wild mountain gardens are
shorn of their loveliness.1

The United States is behind most nations in
making profitable use of scenery. Alpine scen-
ery annually produces upward of ten thousand
dollars to the square mile, while the Rocky
Mountains are being despoiled by cattle and
sawmills for a few dollars a square mile. Though
Switzerland has already accomplished much
along scenic conservation lines, it is working for
still better results. It is constructing modern
hotels throughout the Alps and is exploiting the
winter as well as the summer use of these. The
Canadian Government has done and is doing
extensive development work in its national
parks. It is preparing a welcome for multitudes
of travelers ; travelers are responding in numbers.

The unfortunate fact is that our scenery has

1 Since this was put into type, the Rocky Mountain Na-
tional Park, after a campaign of six years, has been established,
and campaigns have started to make National Parks of Mount
Evans and Pike's Peak. And the Secretary of the Interior
has appointed a Superintendent of National Parks and called
attention to the great need of legislation for these Parks.

315

(RocGj) (ttlounfoin TlJonfcerfcmb

never had a standing. To date, it has been an
outcast. Often lauded as akin to the fine arts,
or something sacred, commonly it is destroyed
or put to base uses. Parks should no longer be
used as pigpens and pastures. These base uses
prevent the parks from paying dividends in
humanity.

There is in this country a splendid array of
Nature's masterpieces to lure and reward the
traveler. In mountain-peaks there are Grand
Teton, Long's Peak, Mt. Whitney, and Mt.
Rainier; in canons, the vast Grand Canon and
the brilliantly colored Yellowstone; in trees, the
unrivaled sequoias and many matchless prime-
val forests; in rivers, few on earth are enriched
with scenes equal to those between which rolls
the Columbia; in petrified forests, those in Ari-
zona and the Yellowstone are unsurpassed; in
natural bridges, those in Utah easily arch above
the other great ones of the earth; in desert at-
tractions, Death Valley offers a rare display of
colors, strangeness, silences, and mirages; in
waterfalls, we have Niagara, Yellowstone, and
Yosemite; in glaciers, there are those of the

316

T&%t Continuation of ^ctntty)

Glacier and Mount Rainier National Parks and
of Alaska; in medicinal springs, there is an
array of flowing, life-extending fountains; in
wild flowers, the mountain wild flowers in the
West are lovely with the loveliest anywhere;
in wild animals of interest and influence, we
have the grizzly bear, the beaver, and the moun-
tain sheep; in bird music, that which is sung by
the thrushes, the canon wren, and the solitaire
silences with melodious sweetness the other best
bird-songs of the earth. In these varied attrac-
tions of our many natural parks we have ample
playgrounds for all the world and the oppor-
tunity for a travel industry many times as pro-
ductive as our gold and silver mines — and
more lasting, too, than they. When these scenes
are ready for the traveler we shall not need to
nag Americans to see America first; and Euro-
peans, too, might start a continuous procession
to these wonderlands.

In the nature of things, the United States
should have a travel industry of vast economic
importance. The people of the United States
are great travelers, and we have numerous and

3i7

(RocRg (fllounfoin Tfrontorfonb

extensive scenic areas of unexcelled attractive-
ness, together with many of the world's greatest
natural wonders and wonderlands which every
one wants to see. All these scenes, too, repose in
a climate that is hospitable and refreshing. They
should attract travelers from abroad as well as
our own people. The traveler brings ideas as
well as gold. He comes with the ideals of other
lands and helps promote international friend-
ship. Then, too, he is an excellent counter-irri-
tant to prevent that self-satisfied attitude, that
deadening provincialism, which always seems
to afflict successful people. Develop our parks
by making them ready for the traveler, and they
will become continuously productive, both com-
mercially and spiritually.

Our established scenic reservations, or those
which may be hereafter set aside, are destined
to become the basis of our large scenic industry.
The present reservations embrace fourteen
National Parks and twenty-eight National
Monuments. Each Park and Monument was
reserved because of its scenic wonders, to be a
recreation place for the people. The name

3i8

£#e ConBtxbation of ^cenerj)

Monument might well be changed to Park. The
Monuments were set aside by executive orders
of the President; the Parks were created by
acts of Congress. Each Park or Monument is a
wonderland in itself. All these together contain
some of the strangest, sublimest scenes on the
globe. Each reservation is different from every
other, and in all of them a traveler could spend
a lifetime without exhausting their wonders.

I suppose that in order to lead Americans to
see America first, or to see it at all, and also to
win travel from Europe, it is absolutely neces-
sary to get America ready for the traveler.
Only a small part of American scenery is ready
for the traveler. The traveler's ultimatum con-
tains four main propositions. These are grand
scenery, excellent climate, good entertainment,
and swift, comfortable transportation. When
all of these demands are supplied with a gener-
ous horn of plenty, then, but not until then, will
multitudes travel in America.

Parks now have a large and important place
in the general welfare, and the nation that neg-
lects its parks will suffer a general decline. The

319

(Rocfy) Qtlounfoin TPonbetfanb

people of the United States greatly need more
parks, and these are needed at once. I do not
know of any city that has park room extensive
enough to refresh its own inhabitants. Is there
a State in the Union that has developed park
areas that are large enough for the people of the
State? With present development, our National
Parks cannot entertain one fifth of the number
of Americans who annually go abroad. As a
matter of fact, the entertainment facilities in
our National Parks are already doing a capacity
business. How, then, can our Parks be seen by
additional travelers?

For a travel industry, the present needs in
America are for cities at once to acquire and
develop into parks all near-by scenery; for each
State to develop its best scenic places as State
Parks ; and for the nation to make a number of
new National Parks and at once make these
scenic reservations ready for the traveler. Sys-
tems of good roads and trails are necessary. In
addition to these, the Parks, Monuments, and
Reservations need the whole and special atten-
tion of a department of their own.

3^o

Tt%t Conmbation of ^cenerp

A park requires eternal vigilance. The better
half of our scenic attractions are the perishable
ones. The forests and the flowers, the birds and
the animals, the luxuriant growths in the pri-
meval wild gardens, are the poetry, the inspi-
ration, of outdoors. Without these, how dead
and desolate the mountain, the meadow, and
the lake! If a park is to be kept permanently
productive, its alluring features must be main-
tained. If the beaver ceases to build his pictur-
esque home, if the deer vanishes, if the moun-
tain sheep no longer poses on the crags, if the
columbine no longer opens its "bannered"
bosom to the sun, if the solitaire no longer sings,
■ — without these poetic and primeval charms,
marred nature will not attract nor refresh.
People often feel the call of the wild, and they
want the wild world beautiful. They need the
temples of the gods, the forest primeval, and
the pure and flower-fringed brooks.

It would be well to save at once in parks
and reservations the better of all remaining
unspoiled scenic sections of the country, — the
lake-shores and the seashore, the stream-side,

321

(RocRg Qftounfatn T2?onbetfanb

the forests primeval, and the Rocky Moun-
tains. There is a great and ragged scenic border
of varying width that extends entirely around
the United States. This includes the Great
Lake region and the splendid Olympic Moun-
tains at the northwest corner of the country.
Inside of this border are other localities richly
dowered with natural beauty and dowered,
too, with hospitable climate. The Rocky Moun-
tain region is one splendid recreation-ground.
There are many beauty-spots in the Ozark
Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas, and there
are scenic regions in New York, Pennsylvania,
and western North Carolina, and the State of
Idaho embraces many scenic empires. These
contain scores of park areas that will early be
needed.

Every park is a place of refuge, a place where-
in wild life thrives and multiplies. As hunters
are perpetually excluded from all parks, these
places will thus become sanctuaries for our van-
ishing wild life. All wild life quickly loses its fear
and allows itself to be readily seen in protected
localities. Wild life in parks thus affords enjoy-

^22

LONG'S l'l \K I-'KOM UK 11 VALE

£0e Conmbation of ^ctntx^

ment by being readily seen, and from now on this
life will become a factor in education. Children
who go into parks will be pleasantly compelled
to observe, delightfully incited to think, and
will thus become alert and interested, — will
have the very foundation of education. Perhaps
it is safe to predict that from now on the tend-
ency will be to multiply the number of parks
and decrease the number of zoological gardens.
Scenic places, if used for parks, will pay larger
returns than by any other use that can be made
of their territory. Parks, then, are not a luxury
but a profitable investment. Switzerland is sup-
porting about half of her population through
the use of her mountain scenery for recreation
purposes. Although parks pay large dividends,
they also have a higher, nobler use. They help
make better men and women. Outdoor life is
educational. It develops the seeing eye, supplies
information, gives material for reflection, and
compels thinking, which is one of the greatest
of accomplishments. Exercise in the pure air
of parks means health, which is the greatest of
personal resources, and this in turn makes for

323

efficiency, kindness, hopefulness, and high ideals.
Recreation in parks tends to prevent wasted life
by preventing disease and wrong-doing. The
conservation of scenery, the use of scenic places
for public recreation parks, is conservation in
the highest sense, for parks make the best eco-
nomic use of the territory and they also pay
large dividends in humanity.

The travel industry is a large and direct con-
tributor to many industries and their laborers.
It helps the railroads, automobile-makers, hotels,
guides, and the manufacturers of the clothing,
books, souvenirs, and other articles purchased
by travelers. Perhaps the farmer is the one
most benefited ; he furnishes the beef, fruit, but-
ter, chickens, and in fact all the food consumed
by the traveling multitude. A large travel in-
dustry means enlarging the home market to
gigantic proportions.

The courts have recently expressed definite
and advanced views concerning scenic beauty.
In Colorado, where water has a high economic
value, a United States Circuit Court recently
decided that the beneficial use of a stream was

3H

£#e Conservation of £kuntx%

not necessarily an agricultural, industrial, or
commercial use, and that, as a part of the scen-
ery, it was being beneficially used for the general
welfare. The question was whether the waters
of a stream, which in the way of a lakelet and
a waterfall were among the attractions of a sum-
mer resort, could be diverted to the detriment
of the falls and used for power. The judge said
"No," because the waters as used, were con-
tributing toward the promotion of the public
health, rest, and recreation; and that as an
object of beauty — "just to be looked at" —
they were not running to waste but were in
beneficial use. He held that objects of beauty
have an important place in our lives and that
these objects should not be destroyed because
they are without assessable value. The judge,
Robert E. Lewis, said in part: —

11 It is a beneficial use to the weary that they,
ailing and feeble, can have the wild beauties of
Nature placed at their convenient disposal. Is
a piece of canvas valuable only for a tentfly, but
worthless as a painting? Is a block of stone
beneficially used when put into the walls of a

325

(RocGg (Wlounfotn Ttfon^tfanb

dam, and not beneficially used when carved
into a piece of statuary? Is the test dollars, or
has beauty of scenery, rest, recreation, health
and enjoyment something to do with it? Is
there no beneficial use except that which is
purely commercial?" This decision is epoch-
marking.

I Taken as a whole, our National Parks and
Monuments and our unreserved scenic places
may be described as an undeveloped scenic
resource of enormous potential value. These
places should be developed as parks and their
resources used exclusively for recreation pur-
poses. Thus used, they would help all interests
and reach all people. South America, Switzer-
land, Canada, and other countries are making
intensified and splendid use of their parks by
reserving that wild scenic beauty which appeals
to all the world.

Parks are dedicated to the highest uses. They
are worthy of our greatest attentions. It is of
utmost importance that the management of
Forest Reserves and the National Parks be sep-
arate. In 1897 the National Academy of Sci-

326

£#e Conserfcafton of ^»cenerg

ences in submitting a plan for the management
of the Forest Reserves recommended that places
specially scenic be separated from the Forest
Reserves and set aside as Parks and given the
separate and special administration which parks
need. If scenery is to be saved, it must be saved
for its own sake, on its own merits; it cannot be
saved as something incidental.

Multitudes will annually visit these places,
provided they be developed as parks and used
for people and for nothing else. Grazing, lum-
bering, shooting, and other commercial, con-
flicting, and disfiguring uses should be rigidly
prohibited. Scenery, like beauty, has superior
merit, and its supreme use is by people for rest
and recreation purposes.

Switzerland after long experience is establish-
ing National Parks and giving these a separate
and distinct management from her forest re-
serves. For a time Canadian National Parks
were managed by the Forest Service. Recently,
however, the parks were withdrawn from the
Forest Service and placed in a Park Depart-
ment. This was a most beneficial change. For-

estry is commercial, radically utilitarian. The
forester is a man with an axe. Trees to the for-
ester mean what cattle do to the butcher. Lum-
ber is his product and to recite "Woodman,
Spare that Tree ! " to a forester would be like ask-
ing the butcher to spare the ox. The forester is
a scientific slaughterer of the forest; he must
keep trees falling in order to supply lumber. A
forester is not concerned with the conservation
of scenery. Then, too, a forester builds his roads
to facilitate logging and lumbering. The Park
man builds roads that are scenic highways,
places for people.

We need the forest reserve, and we need the
National Park. Each of these serves in a dis-
tinct way, and it is of utmost importance that
each be in charge of its specialist. The forester
is always the lumberman, the park man is a
practical poet; the forester thinks ever of lum-
ber, the park man always of landscapes. The
forester must cut trees before they are over-ripe
or his crop will waste, while the park man wants
the groves to become aged and picturesque.
The forester pastures cattle in his meadows,

328

T&%t Conmbation of ^ceturp

while the park man has only people and romp-
ing children among his wild flowers. The park
needs the charm of primeval nature, and should
be free from ugliness, artificiality, and commer-
cialism. For the perpetuation of scenery, a land-
scape artist is absolutely necessary. It would
be folly to put a park man in charge of a forest
reserve, a lumbering proposition. On the other
hand, what a blunder to put a tree-cutting for-
ester in charge of a park! We need both these
men; each is important in his place; but it
would be a double misfortune to put one in
charge of the work of the other. A National
Park service is greatly needed.

Apparently William Penn was the first to
honor our scenery, and Bryant, with poetry,
won a literary standing for it. Official recogni-
tion came later, but the establishment of the
Yellowstone National Park was a great incident
in the scenic history of America — and in that
of the world. For the first time, a scenic wonder-
land was dedicated as " a public park or pleasure
ground for the benefit and enjoyment of all the
people." The Yellowstone stands a high tribute

329

(Roc(fy QHounfatn TUonberfanb

to the statesmanship, the public spirit, and the
energy of F. V. Hayden and the few men who
won it for us.

During the last few years the nation, as well
as the courts, has put itself on record concern-
ing the higher worth of scenery. The White
House conference of governors recommended
that "the beauty ... of our country should be
preserved and increased"; and the first Na-
tional Conservation Commission thought that
"public lands more valuable for conserving
. . . natural beauties and wonders than for
agriculture should be held for the use of the
people."

The travel industry benefits both parties, — ■
the entertained as well as the entertainer. In-
vestments in outdoor vacations give large re-
turns; from an outing one returns with life
lengthened, in livelier spirits, more efficient,
with new ideas and a broader outlook, and more
hopeful and kind. Hence parks and outdoor
recreation places are mighty factors for the gen-
eral welfare; they assist in making better men
and women. A park offers the first aid and often

330

T&%t Conmbation of ^cenerp

the only cure for the sick and the overworked.
Looking upon our sublime scenes arouses a love
for our native land and promotes a fellow feel-
ing. Nature is more democratic even than
death; and when people mingle amid primeval
scenes they become fraternal. Saving our best
scenes is the saving of manhood. These places
encourage every one to do his best and help all
to live comfortably in a beautiful world. Scen-
ery is our noblest resource. No nation has ever
fallen from having too much scenery.

Z%t (BocRp (rrtounfotn QWtonaf
(parR

t§t (Rocty (Wounfain
(Uationaf $m&

yPj^XTEND a straight line fifty-five miles north-
^■^ west from Denver and another line sixty
miles southwest from Cheyenne and these lines
meet in approximately the centre of the Rocky
Mountain National Park. This centre is in
the mountain-heights a few miles northwest of
Long's Peak, in what Dr. F. V. Hayden, the
famous geologist, calls the most rugged section
of the Continental Divide of the Rocky Moun-
tains.

This Park is a mountain realm lying almost
entirely above the altitude of nine thousand feet.
Through it from north to south extends the
Snowy Range, — the Continental Divide, —
and in it this and the Mummy Range form a
vast mountain Y. Specimen Mountain is the
north end of the west arm of this Y, while Mum-
my Mountain is at the tip of the east arm. Mt.

335

Clarence King on the south forms the base of
the stem, while Long's Peak is against the east-
ern side of the stem, about midway.

Long's Peak, ''King of the Rockies," is the
dominating peak and rises to the altitude of
14,255 feet. There are ten or more peaks in the
Park that tower above thirteen thousand, and
upwards of forty others with a greater altitude
than twelve thousand feet. Between these peaks
and their out-jutting spurs are numerous canons.
The Park is from ten to eighteen miles wide, its
greatest length is twenty-five miles, and its total
area is about three hundred and sixty square
miles.

A line drawn around the Park on the bound-
ary line would only in two or three places drop
below the altitude of nine thousand feet. The
area thus is high-lying and for the most part
on edge. About one fifth of the entire area is
above the limits of tree-growth. The peaks are
rocky, rounded, and sharp. Here and there
they are whitened by comparatively small snow
and ice fields. From the summits the moun-
tains descend through steeps, walls, slopes, ter-

336

>> I

ROCKY MOUHTA!!.,-? I

, N*no»Ai p*««m ppfssa — "i

Scale of Miles

K. It. Marshall, Clu I I

:

, U.S. Geoltpitiil Survey

(RocBg (mounfotn Qtaftonaf $at6

races, tablelands, spurs, gorges, and mountain
valleys.

This Park is a wilderness. Though entirely
surrounded by settlers and villages, it is an al-
most unbroken wild. Many of its peaks are as
yet unclimbed. There are pathless forests, un-
visited gorges, unnamed lakes, and unknown
localities.

Gray and red granite form the larger portion
of its surface. Here and there are mixtures of
schist, gneiss, and porphyry. The northwest
corner is volcanic and is made up of rhyolite,
obsidian, and lava. The Indians have a tradi-
tion concerning the volcanic activity of Speci-
men Mountain, though I doubt if this mountain
has been active within a century. It is a dead
or sleeping volcano. A part of its old crater-
rim has fallen away, and brilliant flowers cover
the cold ashes in the crater.

Most of the territory was glaciated during
the last ice age, and there still remain five small
glaciers and a number of ice-fields. The Hallctt
Glacier is on the north shoulder of Hague's
Peak, the Sprague Glacier on the south side of

337

(RocBg (mountain Ttt7onber(anb

Stone's Peak, Tyndall Glacier between Flat-
Top and Mt. Hallett, and Andrews Glacier in
a cirque of Loch Vale, while an unnamed small
one is at the bottom of the east precipice of
Long's Peak.

There can hardly be found a greater and more
closely gathered area of imposing, easily read
glacial records than those which centre about
Long's Peak. These works of the Ice King,
both intact and partly ruined, have attracted
the attention and study of a number of promi-
nent geologists and glaciologists. Among these
ice works Dr. Hayden and Dr. David Starr
Jordan have climbed and wandered. Vernon
L. Kellogg has here gathered material for a
book, and Dr. Edward L. Orton, former State
Geologist of Ohio, has spent many weeks here
in study. Within a six-mile radius of the top
of Long's Peak are more than thirty glacier
lakes and perhaps twice as many lakelets or
mountain tarns. Immediately south of the
Peak, Wild Basin is literally filled with glacier-
records. To the north is Moraine Park; to the
northwest, Glacier Gorge and Loch Vale; to the

338

(RocRg (mountain QWionaf (parB

west, lying between the Peak and Grand Lake,
there is a wondrous area of the Ice King's topog-
raphy.

Bierstadt, St. Vrain, and Mills Moraines are
imposing deposits of glacial debris. Of these
Mills Moraine has been the most studied. It
apparently holds the story of two widely sepa-
rated ice ages. This moraine evidently was
formed by the glacier which made the basin of
Chasm Lake. It extends eastward from Long's
Peak, its uppermost end being at twelve thou-
sand five hundred feet. At timber-line its
trend is toward the southeast. It is about one
mile wide, five miles long, and in places appar-
ently more than one thousand feet deep.

The ice-stream which piled the enormous
Bierstadt Moraine took its rise on the west sum-
mit slope of Long's Peak. It flowed first toward
the west, and in the upper amphitheatre of
Glacier Gorge it united with the ice-stream from
the north slope of Shoshone Peak and the stream
off the eastern slope of Mt. McHenry. Although
a part of this enlarged flow appears to have been
thrust across the Continental Divide, the larger

339

(Roc% QUoun^ain TUonbttfanb

portion of it was deflected to the north through
Glacier Gorge. Emerging from this gorge and
enlarged by the ice-streams from Mt. Otis, Mt.
Hallett, and other peaks in the Continental
Divide, it flowed on to thrust against the east-
ern base of Flat-Top Mountain. This bent it
to the east, and from this turning-point it began
to unload its debris on Bierstadt Moraine. A
part of its debris was dropped in a smaller par-
allel moraine on the opposite side of Glacier
Creek, and finally a terminal moraine was piled
against the western front of Green Mountain,
where it almost united with the terminal part
of the Moraine on the south side of Moraine
Park.

The glaciers have formed and distributed
much of the soil of this region. Above timber-
line there are wide, sedgy meadows and tundras
and dry, grassy moorlands. Everywhere on the
heights where there is soil there is a growth
of Arctic-Alpine vegetation. Above the limits
of tree-growth are enormous ragged areas and
tiny ledge gardens that are crowded with a vari-
ety of brilliantly colored wild blossoms.

340

(£oc% (mountain QtafionaC (patft

The average altitude of the timber-line is
about eleven thousand three hundred feet,
nearly a vertical mile higher than the timber-
line in the Alps. Timber-line the world over is
a place of striking interest, but nowhere have
I found or heard of a timber-line which exhibits
so many telling features as does the forest-fron-
tier on the eastern side of the Continental Di-
vide. The prevailing tree on the drier slopes at
timber-line is Pinus flexilis , the limber pine. In
the moist places Engelmann spruce predomi-
nates, and in many of the moister places there
are dwarfed and tangled growths of arctic wil-
low, black birch, and aspen.

Among the least broken and most enchanting
of the primeval forests of the Park are a few
that are grand. One of these is between the
head of Fall River and the Poudre; another is
in Forest Canon; one is in the southern part of
Wild Basin ; still another is on the western slope
of Stone's Peak and Flat-Top Mountain. These
forests are mostly Engelmann spruce, with a
scattering of sub-alpine fir. Around the lower,
warmer slopes grows the Western yellow pine,

34i

and on the cold lower slopes the Douglas spruce.
There are a number of extensive lodge-pole pine
forests. These are from thirty to one hundred
and thirty years old. Lines of aspen adorn most
streams; here and there where the soil is moist
they expand into groves.

The wild-flower inhabitants of this great
Park number more than a thousand species.
Many of these are members of famous families,
— famous for their antiquity upon the earth,
for their delicate scent, for their intricate
and artistic structure, and for their brilliant
color.

The gentian family is represented by fifteen
species, one of these being a fringed blue gentian,
a Western relative of the fringed gentian cele-
brated by the poet B ryant . There are intricately-
formed orchids. The silver and blue columbine
is here at its best; it blossoms on the lower
slopes in June, on the heights during Septem-
ber. The populous pea family, in yellow, white,
and lavender, covers and colors extensive areas.
Then there are asters, daisies, mariposa lilies,
polemonium, wintergreen, forget-me-nots, black-

342

(£oc&£ (mountain Qtaftonaf $ar8

eyed Susans, and numerous other handsome
flower people. These flowers are scattered all
over the Park except in places destitute of soil.
I have found primroses, phlox, and mertensia
on the summit of Long's Peak. In the heights
above the limits of tree-growth there are scores
of other blossoms.

More than one hundred species of birds nest
in these scenes. Among these are the robin, the
bluebird, the wren, the hermit thrush, the hum-
mingbird, the golden eagle, the white-crowned
sparrow, and that marvelous singer the soli-
taire. Among the resident birds are the ouzel,
the crested and the Rocky Mountain jays, the
chickadee, the downy woodpecker, and the
magpie. The ptarmigan and the rosy finch are
prominent residents in the heights above the
timber-line.

Once the big-game population was numer-
ous. But the grizzly has been almost extermi-
nated, and only a few black bear remain. There
are a few mountain lions and elk. Deer are
fairly common, and in localities mountain sheep
are plentiful and on the increase. Specimen

343

(Roc% (mountain TCPontofanb

Mountain probably is one of the places most
frequented by mountain sheep. A number of
times flocks of more than a hundred have been
seen on this mountain. A scattering of wolves,
coyotes, and foxes remain. Conies are numerous
in the slide rock of the heights, and snowshoe
rabbits people the forests. The Fremont, or
pine, squirrels are scattered throughout the
woods. Lunch where you will, and the dear
and confiding busy chipmunk is pretty certain
to approach. The region appears to be above
the snake line, and I have never seen a snake
within the boundary. The streams and a num-
ber of the lakes have their population of rain-
bow and brook trout. Around the water's edge
mink make their home.

The beaver has colonies large and small all
over the park up to the limits of tree-growth.
Houses, ponds, dams, tree-cuttings, canals, and
other works of the beaver are here readily seen.
Excellent opportunities are afforded to study
beaver manners and customs and to compre-
hend the influence of his work in the conserva-
tion of soil and water.

344

THE FALL RIVER ROAD AC:

THE CONTINENTAL D1V1DK

(RocBg (mountain Qtaftonat $ar6

Big game, and in fact all wild life, begin to
increase in numbers and also to allow them-
selves to be seen from the instant they receive
the complete protection which parks afford.
This park will thus assure a multiplication of the
various kinds of wild life which the region now
contains. And this increased wild life, with no
hunters to alarm, will allow itself to be readily
seen.

There are only a few miles of road within the
Park boundaries, but the Fall River Road, now
under construction across the Continental Di-
vide at Milner Pass, just south of Specimen
Mountain, will be a wonderful scenic highway.
Although there are a number of trails in the
Park, so broken is the topography that most
of the country a stone's throw away from them
is unvisited and unknown.

A road skirts the western boundary of the
Park and touches it at Grand Lake and Speci-
men Mountain. Another road closely parallels
the eastern boundary-line, and from it a half-
dozen roads touch the Park. This parallel road
reaches the roads of Denver and of the plains

345

(Rocffy Qtlounfoin Tftonberfanb

through the Boulder, Left Hand, Big Thomp-
son, and two St. Vrain canons.

The drainage of the western half of the Park
concentrates in the Grand River on the west-
ern boundary and reaches the Pacific Ocean
through the Grand Canon of Arizona. A num-
ber of streams rise in the eastern side. These
assemble their waters in the Platte River out on
the plains. In their upper course, all these
streams start from the snows and come rush-
ing and bounding down the roughest, steepest
slopes.

The climate of the eastern slope is compara-
tively dry and mild. The winters are sunny,
but little snow falls, and the winds are occasion-
ally warm and usually extremely dry. Though
only a few miles from the eastern slope, the west-
ern rarely receives a wind, and its snow-fall is
more than double that of the eastern.

Numerous authors and artists have made
long visits in this region, and its scenery has
received their highest praise. Bierstadt, the
artist, came here in 1870. A few years later he
was followed by the famous authors Isabella

346

(£oc% (mounfom Qtaftonaf (parfi

Bird, Anna Dickinson, and Helen Hunt. Fred-
erick H. Chapin visited the region in 1888
and wrote a splendidly illustrated book about
it, called "Mountaineering in Colorado." This
was published by the Appalachian Club. In
commenting upon the scenery of the region,
Hayden, Father of the Yellowstone National
Park, turned aside from scientific discussion in
his geological report for 1875 to pay the fol-
lowing tribute to the scenic charm of this
territory : —

"Not only has nature amply supplied this
with features of rare beauty and surroundings
of admirable grandeur, but it has thus distrib-
uted them that the eye of an artist may rest
with perfect satisfaction on the complete pic-
ture presented. It may be said, perhaps, that
the more minute details of the scenery are too
decorative in their character, showing, as they
do, the irregular picturesque groups of hills,
buttes, products of erosion, and the finely
moulded ridges — the effect is pleasing in the
extreme."

Long's Peak is considered by mountain-

347

QRocRg (mountain T3?onbeiffcml>

climbers an excellent view-point. Standing
aside one mile from the Continental Divide and
rising above a large surrounding wonderland,
its summit and upper slopes give splendid views
and command a variety of scenes, near and far.
While upon its slope, Mr. Chapin said: "I
would not fail to impress on the mind of the
tourist that the scenes are too grand for words
to convey a true idea of their magnificence.
Let him, then, not fail to visit them." It is an
extremely rocky and rugged peak, but it is al-
most entirely free of snow and ice, so that climb-
ing it is simply a day's work crowded with en-
joyment and almost free from danger. Though
it is two hundred and fifty feet lower than the
highest peak in the Rocky Mountains and three
hundred and fifty feet lower than Mt. Whitney,
California, the highest peak in the United States,
Long's Peak probably has a greater individual-
ity than either. Alongside it stands Mt. Meeker,
with an altitude of 14,000 feet. These sky towers
are visible more than one hundred miles. The
Indians of the Colorado and Wyoming plains
used to call them the "Two Guides."

348

(£oc8£ (mountain QWtonaf $ar8

It is possible, if not probable, that Long's
Peak was originally one thousand or even two
thousand feet higher. The mass of this peak
stands apart from the main range and embraces
three other peaks. These are Mt. Meeker, Mt.
Washington, and Storm Peak. All are united
below thirteen thousand feet. They may once
have been united in one greatly higher mass.
Much of the debris in the vast Boulderfield and
Mills Moraines and a lesser amount from the
enormous Bierstadt and St. Vrain Moraines
must have come from the summit slope of the
Long's Peak group. No small part of this may
have come from above thirteen thousand feet.
An exceedingly small percentage of the glacial
debris which surrounds Long's Peak would, if
atop the Long's Peak group, elevate it two
thousand feet higher.

The Glacier Gorge region, which lies just to
the northwest of Long's Peak, probably has the
most magnificent scenery in the Park. Here are
clustered enormous glaciated gorges, great gla-
ciated walls, alpine lakes, waterfalls, moraines,
alpine flora, and towering peaks.

349

(£ocfy> (mountain TDonberfon*

Wild Basin, a broken and glaciated region of
twenty-five square miles, lies immediately south
of the Peak. This basin is almost encircled
by eight towering peaks, and the enormous
St. Vrain Moraine thrusts out of its outlet and
shows where the united ice-rivers formerly
made their way from this basin. Within this
wild area are lakes, forests, waterfalls, and a
splendid variety of wild and lovely scenes.

The glacier lakes and wild tarns of this Park
are one of its delights. Though most of these
water fountains are small, they are singularly
beautiful. They are in the middle-mountain
zone, in a belt which lies between the altitudes
of ten thousand and twelve thousand feet. There
are more than a hundred of these, and their
attractiveness equals that of any of the moun-
tain lakes of the world.

The best known and most popular of these
lakes are Fern and Odessa. These lie about
twelve miles west of the village of Estes Park.
Chasm Lake, on the east side of Long's Peak,
is set in an utterly wild place. Its basin was
gouged from solid granite by the old Long's

350

(Rocfy (mountain Qtafionaf (parS

Peak Glacier. Mt. Washington, Mt. Meeker,
and Long's Peak tower above it, and around it
these peaks have flung their wreckage in chaotic
confusion. A glacier almost crawls into it, and
the east precipice of Long's Peak, the greatest
precipice in the Park, looms above it.

Long, Black, Thunder, Ouzel, and Poudre
Lakes have charms peculiar to each, and each
is well worth a visit. Lake Mills, in the lower
end of Glacier Gorge, is one of the largest lakes
in the Park. The largest lake that I know of in
the Rocky Mountain National Park is Lake
Nanita. This is about one mile long and half
as wide, and reposes in that wilderness of wild
topography about midway between Grand
Lake and Long's Peak. There are mountain
people living within eight or ten miles of this
lake who have never even heard of its existence.
Although I have been to it a number of times, I
have never found even a sign of another human
visitor. A member of the United States Geolog-
ical Survey is the only individual I have ever
met who had seen it.

As originally planned, the Park was to have

35i

(£oc6g (fflounfain Tftonbarfanb

more than twice its present area. I hope there
may be early added to this region Mt. Audubon,
Arapahoe Peak, and other territory to the south.
The summit of Twin Peaks on the east would
make another excellent addition. A part of the
Rabbit Ear Range to the northwest, and Medi-
cine Bow Mountains and the headwaters of the
Poudre lying to the north, would make excel-
lent park territory.

But even as it now stands, this splendidly
scenic region with its delightful climate appears
predestined to become one of the most visited
and one of the most enjoyed of all the scenic
reservations of the Government. In addition
to its scenery and climate, it is not far from the
geographical centre of the United States. A
number of transcontinental railroads are close
to it, and two railroads run within a few miles
of its border. The Lincoln Highway is within
twenty miles of it, and six excellent automobile
roads connect its edges with the outside world.

Each year visitors reach it in increasing num-
bers. During 1914 there were more than 56,000
of these, many of whom remained to enjoy it

352

(Roc6g QUounfom Qtoflonaf (parft

for weeks. It has a rare combination of those
characteristics which almost every one wants
and which all tired people need, — accessibility,
rare scenery, and a friendly climate.

THE END

3nbe;c

3nb^

Alpine Pass, 80.

Alps, the, compared with the

Rocky Mountains, 313, 314;

conservation of scenery in,

315. 323-
Altitude, effects of, 10-12, 302-

305-
Andrews Glacier, 153, 338.
Arapahoe Glacier, 153.
Arapahoe Peak, 352.
Aspen, 61, 214, 215, 218, 219.
Austin, Mary, quoted, 46.

Battle Mountain, the mountain
sheep of, 41-46.

Bear, black, 63; above timber-
line, 107; eating dead trout,
136.

Bear, grizzly, and mountain
sheep, 43; tearing up dwarfed
trees, 61; hibernation, 63,
201-203; above timber-line,
107; eating dead trout, 136;
watching a forest fire, 142; a
grizzly observed at close quar-
ters, 187-189; caution, 188;
alertness and brain-power,
189; following a grizzly, 190,
191; a cattle-killing grizzly,
191, 192; curiosity, 192, 193;
attitude towards man, 194-
196; stories of, 196, 197; food,
197-200; fishing, 198, 199; a
mother and two cubs, 200,
201 ; hibernating habits, 201-

203; emerging from hiberna-
tion, 203-205; young, 205;
cubs as pets, 205, 206; color
and races, 206, 207; size and
agility, 207, 208; age, 208;
verging on extermination, 208;
shortening the life of a moun-
tain park, 235.

Bears, emerging from snow, 63;
an encounter on the Hailett
Glacier, 108, 109; benefited by
deep snow, 269.

Beaver, 136; the Cascade Col-
ony annihilated by drought,
249-256; benefited by deep
snow, 269, 270; in the Rocky
Mountain National Park, 344.

Beetle, battle with a wasp, III.

Bellfiower, 120.

Bierstadt, Albert, 346.

Bierstadt Lake, 157, 158.

Bierstadt Moraine, 339, 340.

Bighorn. See Sheep, Mountain.

Birch, black, 61, 62.

Bird, Isabella, 346, 347.

Birds, visiting the summit of
Long's Peak, 102; of the
mountain-summits, 112-115;
in winter, 271-274; on Pike's
Peak, 306, 307; of the Rocky
Mountain National Park, 343.

Bobtail Gulch, 79.

Boulderfield, 15, 349.

Bowles, Samuel, quoted, 230,
231.

357

3nb^

Buckwheat, wild, 118.
Buds, as food, 272.

Cameron's Cone, 309.

Camp Bird Mine, 172, 173.

Camp-bird. See Jay, Rocky
Mountain.

Camp-fire, the, 245.

Canada, National Parks, 315,
326, 327.

Chapin, Frederick H., 347;
quoted, 348.

Chapman, Frank M., 59.

Chasm Lake, 162, 339, 350, 351.

Cheyenne Canon, 300.

Cheyenne Mountain, 299.

Chicago Lake, 157.

Chickadees, 273.

Chinook wind, the, 69-75, 2^9-

Chipmunk, big, 289, 290.

Chipmunk, busy, 290, 344.

Chipmunks, and heavy snow,
270; hibernation, 271, 282,
283; in the author's yard, 277-
291; persistency, 280; tunnels,
280, 281; bedding, 281, 282;
bathing, 282; drinking, 282;
winter stores, 282-284; a
frightened young one, 284;
and weasels, 285; and coyotes,
285, 286; sense of proprietor-
ship, 286; the young, 287, 288;
food, 289; mobbed by birds,
289, 290; species, 290; enemies,
290; and children, 290, 291.

Columbine, 119, 342.

Conservation Commission, 330.

Continental Divide, 335, 345.

Cony, or pika, no, ill, 344.

Coyotes, 136; and chipmunks,
285, 286.

Crags, the, 44, 45.

Cricket, the return horse, 169-

183.
Crow, Clarke, 64, 199.

Death Valley, 316.

Deer, above timber-line, 109; in
deep snow, 259, 260; yarding
habit, 262-265; a herd killed
by a mountain lion, 265; win-
ter food, 265; summer and
winter ranges, 265, 266.

Dickinson, Anna, 347.

Eagle, faithful to its dead mate,

137-
Eagle, golden, 102, 115.
Elk, summer and winter ranges,

265, 266; preyed upon by

wolves, 266.
Estes Park, description, 232, 233.

Fall River Road, 345.

Fern Lake, 350.

Finch, rosy, brown-capped, 1 12,

"3- m

Fir, alpine, 61.

Flat-Top Mountain, 44, 341.

Florissant, 298, 299.

Flowers, at timber-line, 65; of
mountain-summits, 1 16-120;
on Pike's Peak, 308, 309.

Forest Canon, 341.

Forest fires, records of, 125-128;
resistance of various trees to
fire, 128-130; injury to South-
ern hardwood forests, 131; an-
tiquity, 131; a record in a red-
wood, 131-133; origins, 133-
135. x39; following a fire, 135-
140; effect on animal life, 136,

358

3^

137, 142; up and down slopes,
140, 141; heat at a distance,
141; varying speed, 141, 142;
brilliant displays, 142-145;
cause of some mountain parks,

233. 234-
Forest Reserves, should be kept

separate from National Parks,

326-329.
Forester, and scenery, 328, 329.
Fossil-beds, 298, 299.
Fox, silver, 109.
Fremont, John C, 28; quoted,

231.

Game, big, in deep snow, 259-
268; yarding, 262-265; winter
food, 265, 266; bunching habit,
267, 268.

Gentians, 342.

Glacier Creek, 340.

Glacier Gorge, 23, 43, 158, 338-
340; scenery, 349.

Glacier meadows. See Meadows.

Glaciers, as makers of lake-ba-
sins, 150-153; in Colorado,
153; in the Rocky Mountain
National Park, 337, 338; gla-
cial records in the Rocky
Mountain National Park, 338-
340.

Goat, mountain, 36.

Grand Lake, 157, 1 58.

Gray's Peak, 90.

Greagory Gulch, 79.

Great Falls, Mont., 71.

Green Mountain, 340.

Grosbeak, Western evening, 307.

Hague's Peak, 337.

Hallett Glacier, 108, 153, 337.

Hayden, Dr. F. V., 330, 335, 338;

quoted, 232, 347.
Hayden Valley, 232.
Hesperus, a return horse, 173,

174.
Horses, the story of Cricket, 169-

183; return horses, 170-176.
Hunt, Helen, 299, 347.

Insects, on the heights, 108, III.

Jay, Rocky Mountain, 64, 265.
Jordan, Dr. David Starr, 338.
Junco, gray-headed, 115.

Kellogg, Vernon L., 338.

King, Clarence, his "Mountain-
eering in the Sierra Nevada"
quoted, 1 1.

Lake Agnes, 162.

Lake Mills, 351.

Lake Moraine, 309.

Lake Nanita, 351.

Lake Odessa, 158, 350.

Lakes, made by glaciers, 149-

153; beauties of, 154-160;

names, 157, 158; ice on, 160;

filled by debris and landslides,

161-165; in Rocky Mountain

National Park, 350, 351.
Landslides, destruction of lakes

by, 162-165.
Leucosticte, brown-capped. See

Finch, rosy.
Lewis, Judge Robert E., decision

as to scenery, 324-326.
Lion, mountain, a game-hog, 42;

pursuing mountain sheep on

the heights, 106, 107; killing a

herd of deer, 265.

359

3nb#

Lizard Head, 176.

Loch Vale, 158, 338.

Long, Stephen H., his expedi-
tion, 302.

Long's Peak, guiding experi-
ences on, 3-18; the Narrows,
13; temperature at timber-
line, 60; altitude, 102, 336;
life on the summit, 102; glacial
records about, 338; flowers on
summit, 343; view, 347, 348;
individuality, 348; geological
history, 349.

Magpie, 64, 136.

Mary Lake, 44.

Meadows, glacier, evolution of,

237-239; termination, 239,

240.
Mertensia, 118.
Middle Park, 229-231.
Mills Moraine, 339, 349.
Milner Pass, 345.
Minnehaha Falls, 306.
Montana, the Chinook wind in,

71, 73-
Moose, yarding habit, 262, 263.
Moraine Lake, 157.
Moraine Park, 338, 340.
Moraines, in Rocky Mountain

National Park, 339, 340.
Mt. Audubon, 352.
Mt. Clarence King, 336.
Mt. McHenry, 339.
Mt. Meeker, 42; altitude, 348;

geological history, 349.
Mt. Orizaba, 59.
Mt. Richthofen, 162.
Mt. Washington (Colo.), 163,

349-
Mt. Wilson, 176.

Mountain-climbing, speed in, 3-
6; keeping the party together,
7; quarrels, 7, 8; sickness, 9-
1 1 ; autocracy of the guide, 12-
14; a narrow escape. 15, 16;
suggestions to climbers, 18;
advantages of, 18, 19.

Mountain-sickness, 5, 6, 9, 14;
causes and cure, 10, 11.

Muir, John, quoted, 19, 58, 149,
150.

Mummy Mountain, 335.

Mummy Range, 335.

National Monuments, 318, 319.

National Parks, in Canada, 315,
326, 327; in the United States,
315 note, 318, 319; need of
separate management, 320,
326-329; perishable attrac-
tions, 321; wild life in, 322,
323; as an investment, 323,
324; development, 326; should
be kept separate from Forest
Reserves, 326-329; establish-
ment of Yellowstone Park,
329; Rocky Mountain Nation-
al Park, 335-353-

North Park, 229, 231.

Ophir Loop, 176, 180.

Orton, Dr. Edward L., 338.

Ouray, 171, 172.

Ouzel, water, in winter, 272,

273.
Ouzel Lake, 158.

Paint-brush, 118.

Parks, mountain, their charac-
teristics, 229-232; origin, 233-
235; end, 235-237; glacier

360

InUjc

meadows, 237-240; as camp-
ing-places, 240-245.

Parks, National. See National
Parks.

Penn, William, 329.

Pika, or cony, no, in, 344.

Pike, Zcbulon M., 301.

Pike's Peak, situation, 295; alti-
tude, 295; accessibility, 295,
296; view, 296; characteristics,
297; attractions, 297-300; his-
tory, 301, 302; climate, 302-
305; summit, 305; life zones,
305, 306; bird-life, 306, 307;
big game, 307; wild flowers
and trees, 308, 309; geology,

309. 3i°-

Pillars of Hercules, 300.

Pine, limber, 61-63.

Pine, lodge-pole, 125, 126, 140;
extension of area, 211; seed-
ing, 21 1-2 13; spread depend-
ent upon fire, 213; elements of
success, 214; a forest pioneer,
218,219; hoarding of seed, 219,
220; rapidity of growth, 220,
221; overgrown cones, 221-
223; fruitfulness, 223; release
of seeds, 223; character of
stands, 224; giving way to
other species, 225; dependence
upon fire, 225, 226; range, 226.

Pine, pitch, 214.

Pine, short-leaved (Pinus Mon-
tezuma), 59.

Pine, Western yellow, two
stumps, 125, 126; a good fire-
fighter, 129; preserved by fire,
140.

Porcupine, 270.

Prospect Dome, 300.

Ptarmigan, 102, 113, 114; in the
winter snows, 271, 272; food,
272.

Rabbit, snowshoe, 344.

Rabbits, 270.

Rats, mountain, 137.

Redwood, 128,1 130; a forest-
fire record, 131-133.

Rocky Mountain National Park,
location, area, and topography,
335. 336; geology, 337~34o;
forests, 341, 342; wild flowers,
342, 343; animal life, 343~345:
roads and trails, 345; streams,
346; climate, 346; scenery,
346-350; lakes, 350, 351; ac-
cessibility, 352; visitors, 352,

353-
Rocky Mountains, Colorado,
scenery of, 313, 314.

St. Vrain Moraine, 339, 349,
350.

San Cristoval Lake, 157.

San Juan Mountains, and return
horses, 170, 171.

Scenery, of the Rocky Moun-
tains, 313, 314; conservation
and destruction, 314-331; in
the United States, 316, 317,
321, 322; a judicial decision,
324-326; and forestry, 327-
329; literary and official re-
cognition, 329, 330.

Schneider, Dr. Edward C,
quoted, 303-305.

Seven Lakes, 309.

Sheep, mountain, 64; a flock de-
scending a mountain, 23-28;
as acrobats, 24; fable as to

361

3nb^

landing on horns, 28, 29; shape
and size of horns, 29, 30; a
wild leap, 30-32; accidents,
32, 33; an agile ram, 33~35;
hoofs, 35; size, color, and other
characteristics, 35, 36; species
and range, 36, 37; in winter,
37; excursions to the lowlands,

37, 38; composition of flocks,
38; craving for salt, 38; lambs,

38, 39; near approach to, 40;
a ram killed by a barbed-wire
fence, 40, 41 ; the flock on Bat-
tle Mountain, 41-46; fights,
44-46; threatened extermina-
tion, 46; at high altitudes,
105-107; watching a forest
fire, 142; clings to the heights
in snowy times, 266, 267.

Shoshone Peak, 339.

Silver Lake, 157.

Silverton, 171.

Snow, on summits of the Rocky
Mountains, 103; and animal
life, 259-275; a great snow,
268; and the Chinook wind,
269.

Snow-slides, started by dyna-
mite, 79; a prospector out-
witted, 79-84; habits, 81; ob-
servation of, 84-86; classifi-
cation, 87-90; coasting on a
slide, 91-94; a large slide, 94-

97-
Solitaire, Townsend's, 64, 154,

241.
South Cheyenne Canon, 298-

300.
South Park, 229.
Sparrow, white-crowned, 64, 102,

115. 154-

Specimen Mountain, 38, 335,

337. 343. 344-

Sprague Glacier, 153, 337.

" Springfield Republican," quot-
ed, 230, 231.

Spruce, Douglas, 140.

Spruce, Engelmann, 61.

Squirrel, Fremont, or pine, 64,

344-
Squirrels, and deep snow, 270,

271; hibernation, 271.
Stone's Peak, 338, 341.
Storm Peak, 349.
Switzerland, conservation of

scenery in, 313-315. 323. 327-

Telluride, 171, 172, 174-176,
183.

Thatch-Top Mountain, moun-
tain sheep on, 23-28.

Thunder Lake, 157, 158.

Timber-line, characteristics of,
49-58; altitude, 50, 59, 60, 101;
determining factors, 58, 59;
temperature, 60; species of
trees at, 60, 61 ; age of trees at,
61, 62; animal life at, 63, 64;
flowers at, 65; impressions at,
65, 66; animal life above, 101,
102, 105-115; flowers above,
116-120.

Trapper's Lake, 157.

Trees, species at timber-line, 60;
age at timber-line, 61, 62; re-
sistance to fire, 128-130; meth-
ods of reproduction, 214-216;
tolerance and intolerance, 216-
218; of Pike's Peak, 308. See
also Timber-line.

Trout Lake, 157, 176.

Twin Lakes, 157.

362

3tiW

Tyndall, John, 18.
Tyndall Glacier, 338.

Wasp, battle with a beetle, III.

Weasels, above timber-line, lit,
112; and chipmunk, 285.

Wild Basin, 338, 341; descrip-
tion, 350. _

Willow, arctic, 61.

Willow, propagation, 215.

Wolves, 266, 268.

Woodchuck, above timber-line,

109.
Woodpeckers, 273.

Yarding, 262-265.
Yellowstone National Park, es-
tablishment of, 329.

Zones, life, 305, 306.

(Cbe Riiicrsibc prcjsg

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