No denying I thrilled from head to foot over the prospect of meeting Mr. Coyote face to face! If he showed fight I'd snatch my six-shooter from its holster (forgotten was its faithless performance in Wild Basin!) and show him I was not to be trifled with. Of course, I'd aim to hit him where the shot would do least damage to his fur; it would be more valuable for marketing.

Just then I heard the clank of the trap chain. Heart pounding, hands trembling, I shakily drew my gun, and cautiously advanced. Around the corner of a bowlder I came upon a large coyote, with a black stripe running along his back, squatting in an old game trail, apparently little concerned either at my presence or at his own dilemma. As I stumbled toward him, he faced about, and without taking his eyes off me, kept jerking the trap which was wedged between a root and a bowlder. Twenty feet away I stopped, and with what coolness I could command in my excitement, took aim and fired. The bullet only ruffled the heavy fur at his shoulder. Determined to finish him next shot, I edged nearer. My target refused to stand still—he sprang the full length of his chain again and again, striving to dislodge the trap. Finally it jerked free and he was off like a rabbit, despite his dragging burden, leaping logs or scuttling beneath them, zigzagging along the crooked trail, dodging bowlders, tree limbs and my frequent but ineffective fire. For I madly pursued him though hard put to keep up his pace.

Suddenly the trap caught again and jerked its victim to an abrupt stop. He whirled about and faced me defiantly, eyes blazing, fangs bared. I reloaded my revolver, aimed—fired, aimed—fired again and again, until the cylinder was empty, without once hitting him.

I began to think that, like old Tom, he led a charmed life. Just then he jerked loose, and once more the chase was on. I reloaded my six-shooter and fired on the run, shouting excitedly. He ran on with tireless, automatic motion, apparently as unperturbed as he was impervious to bullets.

All at once I discovered my belt empty—I had exhausted my cartridges! Disgusted, I shoved my gun back into its holster, and, picking up a stout club, ran after the coyote. Several times I was close enough to hit him, but he deftly dodged or else sprang forward beyond reach. Once when the trap caught and prisoned him an instant, I swung my club, sure of ending the race, but it collided on a limb overhead and went wide of the mark! Again I overtook the coyote as he struggled through hindering bush, and, reaching forward, swung my bludgeon with all my might and fell headlong upon him! I gave a terrified yell; my battered hat flew off; I dropped my club. The coyote was out of sight before I gained my feet!

Suddenly we popped out of the forest on the edge of a canyon; its sides were smooth and almost bare. On this open ground, my quarry gained on me by leaps and bounds. I spied a rock-slide below—great slabs that had slid down from the cliff above—between openings amply large to admit almost any animal. Once the coyote reached that slide, he would escape. Panting loudly, I sprinted forward to overtake him.

The trap chain wedged unexpectedly, the coyote changed ends, and came up facing me. I could not put on brakes quickly enough and skidded almost into him. He sprang at my throat. As he launched upward I glimpsed his flaming eyes and wide-open, fang-filled mouth. I do not know what saved me; whether my desperate effort to reverse succeeded, whether I dodged, or whether the restraining trap chain thwarted him. As it was, his teeth grazed my face, leaving deep, red scars across my chin.... His was the handsomest skin that adorned the walls of my cabin when that dream eventually became a reality. I did not sell the skin as purposed—not, however, because my bullets had ruined it for marketing!



In common with all small boys, I was the hero of my dreams, and in my fancy saw myself growing into a magnified composite of Nimrod, Robin Hood, Kit Carson, and Buffalo Bill, all molded into one mighty man who dwarfed the original individuals! I confess reality was retarding my growth considerably. It looked as though Kit Carson would go unrivaled by me as a trapper; certainly the shades of Nimrod and Robin Hood had no cause to be uneasy lest I win their laurels from them, and as for Buffalo Bill—both the Buffalo and the redskins, whose scalps had always dangled in fancy from my belt in revenge for their plaguing my mother on her brave drive with my sick father across those long unsettled miles, were far beyond my puny vengeance.

The Parson told me that the Utes, a nomadic tribe, had once roamed the mountains and valleys around Estes, but that it was not generally believed that they had permanent settlements here. It was thought they made temporary or seasonal camp when hunting or fishing was at its height, and that they used the alpine valley as a vast council chamber when they met to discuss inter-tribal matters. Certain it is, I puzzled over curious, dim, ghostly circles, or rings, in the valleys, where neither grass nor any other vegetation had gained root even after all these years. The old-timers told me these had been made by the Indians banking dirt around their lodges. A few scattered tepee frames still stood, here and there, in sheltered groves along the river. Occasionally I picked up arrowheads—once upon a high-flung ledge I came upon a score or more. How my imagination soared! Here, no doubt, an Indian had stood, in eagle-feathered war bonnet and full regalia, guarding this pass; he had been wounded sore unto death, he fell! His bones, and all his trappings, the wooden shaft of his arrows, had disintegrated and disappeared. Only these bits of flint enmeshed in the clinging tendrils of Indian tobacco, or kinnikinic, were left to tell the tale of his heroism.

Of course, I didn't give up hunting or trapping or even my hope of finding a gold mine, altogether. I continued to exercise my six-shooter, though repeated failures to find my mark made it easy for me to depend more and more on my camera for "shots." I still inspected my trapline, with mental resolutions against trailing trap-maddened coyotes.

My trip over the Divide gave me a keener appreciation of winter upon the heights. When, from the window of our snug log cabin, I looked up toward Long's Peak, and saw the clouds of snow dust swirling about its head, I pictured just what was happening up there far more accurately than I could ever have done before I had that experience. I made frequent trips above timberline, sometimes to find arctic gales that filled the air with icy pellets which penetrated like shot, cutting my face; gales that drove the cold through the thickest, heaviest clothes I could put on; gales that blew the snow about until it enveloped me in a cloud-like veil, making vision impossible. On such days, retreat was the only possible, if not valorous, course. To have remained would have been foolhardy, for blinded and buffeted by the storm, I might easily have stepped off a precipice with less fortunate consequences than had attended my experience on my journey over the Divide.

But sometimes, the conditions on the heights were astonishing. Once I left our valley chill and gloomy, all shut in by lowering clouds, and climbed up toward the hidden summits of the peaks, to emerge above the clouds into bright, warm sunshine. Another day, at an altitude of twelve thousand feet, I found it only twelve below freezing, while, at the same time, as I learned later, it was twenty-four degrees below zero at Fort Collins, a town forty miles away on the plains. Strange freak of weather! The explanation lay in the difference between the winds that blew over the respective sections, a blizzardly north wind was sweeping over the low, exposed plains, while up on the peak-encircled heights a balmy "chinook" gently stirred from the west. Mountaineers know that as long as the west wind blows no severe storm is to be feared. It is the chill east wind that comes creeping up the canyons from the bleak plains and prairies of the lowlands, which bring the blizzards.

One rare, windless day upon the heights, my little hay-making friend, the cony, greeted me with an enthusiastic "squee-ek." He was sunning himself upon a rock and looked so sleek and plump I knew his harvest had been bountiful. He lay gazing off into space, apparently contemplating the Divide. But when, a few minutes later, a beady-eyed weasel challenged my right of way, I wondered whether little "Squee-ek's" thoughts were so remote as those distant peaks! In both storm and sunshine, I saw weasels abroad on the heights. They were bold, fearless little cutthroats, approaching within a few feet to stare at me wickedly. I saw them below timberline pursuing snowshoe rabbits many times their size.

Occasionally I came across fox tracks. These sly fellows seemed indifferent to cold or wind. They stalked the ptarmigan above timberline, and the grouse that had migrated up the slopes to winter, below it, and accounted for the death of many. One moonlit night, as I prowled upward, I heard an unearthly, uncanny squall. I couldn't help the shiver that ran down my spine. All the pent-up anguish and torment in the world broke forth in that sound. But perhaps it was only his foxy protest because his prey had outfoxed him.

But by far the most interesting mountain-top dwellers were the Bighorn sheep, which adopted those frigid regions as a winter resort. I had often wondered about those lofty-minded animals I had tracked over in the Wild Basin country. Were they still on those wind-blown heights? It seemed incredible that they could stand a whole winter of such bitter buffeting. Yet, on the days when I climbed above the timberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedly feeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpine gales kept uncovered. It was fascinating to watch them; neither wild winds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick wool coats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts. True, on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts of rock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, away from the prevailing winds. There they probably stayed for days at a time, as long as the worst storms prevailed. Such days I did not dare venture upon the heights, but I often found signs of their bedding down among similar crags.

And such nerveless or nervy creatures as they were! From the top of a cliff, one day, I watched a band of them go down a nearly perpendicular wall. I could not follow, though I did go part way down to where the wall bulged outward. There the ledges had crumbled away, leaving sheer, smooth rock. It did not seem possible that anything could go down that smooth face. But half a dozen sheep in succession made the descent safely, as I watched, breathless, from above. They seemed to defy the laws of gravitation in walking over the rim rock; for, instead of tumbling headlong as I feared, they went skidding downward, bouncing, side-stepping, twisting and angling across the wall like coasters on snow; they could not stop their downward drop, but they controlled their descent by making brakes of their feet, and taking advantage of every small bump to retard their speed. By foot pressure they steered their course for a shelving rock below. One after another, in quick succession, they shot down, struck the shelf and leaped sidewise to a ledge a dozen feet beneath. In spite of their efforts to retard their speed, they had gained tremendous momentum before reaching the ledge and landed with all four feet bunched beneath them. It seemed that their legs would surely be thrust through their bodies. Their heads jerked downward, their noses threatened to be skinned on the rock! Yet that rough descent neither disabled nor unnerved them. They recovered their balance instantly and trotted away around a turn of the wall.

One young ram thought to escape by leaving the cliff and making his way across a steep, snowy slide to another crag. In places he struck soft snow and plunged heavily, breaking his way through. Midway between crags, however, he came to grief quite unexpectedly. An oozing spring had overflowed and covered the rocks with a coating of ice. Then snow had blown down from above and covered it. The ram struck this at top speed, and a moment afterward was turning somersaults down the slope. A hundred feet below he nimbly recovered his balance and proceeded on his way, carrying his head haughtily, as though indignant at my burst of laughter.

Part way down the cliff I found the tracks of the big ram leader of the band. I had long since named him "Big Eye," which an old trapper had told me was the Indians' expression for extraordinary eyesight. Not that "Big Eye" was exceptional in this respect, not at all! Every one of his band possessed miraculous eyesight. But he was always alert and wary. It was unbelievable that he could detect me such a long way off, around bowlders, through granite walls, in thick brush, but it seemed to me he did. No matter how carefully I concealed my approach, he always discovered me. This day he had left his band and had turned aside upon an extremely narrow shelf and made his way out of sight. I followed his tracks, curious to learn where he had gone. Many places he had negotiated without slacking his speed, whereas I was forced to make detours for better footing, to double back and forth, and generally to progress very slowly. Apparently he was not much frightened, for his tracks showed that he had frequently halted to look behind him.

So intent was I upon overtaking him, that I ran into a flock of ptarmigan and nearly stepped on one of the "fool hens" before it took wing and got out of the way, so utterly did it stake its safety on its winter camouflage. The whole flock had been sitting in plain sight but their snow-white coats made them hardly distinguishable from their background. They faded into the landscape like an elusive puzzle picture. In summer they had depended on their speckled plumage, so like the mottled patches of sand and snow and grass and granite whereon they lived, to protect them. They certainly put their trust in nature!

Around a turn, I came upon the old Patriarch. He was standing with his back to the wall, facing out and back, for here the ledge he had been following pinched out, and even he, champion acrobat of the cliffs, could neither climb up nor find a way down. For several minutes we faced each other, ten yards apart. I had heard that mountain sheep never attack men, and that even the big leaders never use their massive, battering ram heads to injure anyone. With this in mind I moved up to within ten feet when a movement of his haughty head stopped me. Somehow in his action was the suggestion that he might forget tradition. One bump of his huge head would knock me overboard. There was nothing but space for a hundred feet below, then sheer wall for several hundred feet more.

Arrogantly he faced me, unflinchingly; his eyes of black and gold never wavering; statuesque, his heroic body set solidly upon his sturdy legs, his regal head high, his lodestone feet secure upon the sloping rock, he was a handsome figure. He outweighed me about three pounds to one; so the longer I looked at him, the less desire I had to crowd. At length I mustered up courage to try him out. Slowly, an inch at a time, I edged forward, talking quietly—assuring him that my intentions were good, and that I merely wanted to learn how near a fellow might go without his lordship's taking exceptions.

Suddenly he stiffened; half closed his eyes and lowered his head. At the same instant he shifted his feet as though to charge. As I backed carefully away, I recalled again that his kind had never harmed anyone, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and left him in undisputed possession of the ledge.

On many a windy winter day thereafter, I saw "Big Eye" and his band. Always I laughed a bit at my experience upon the ledge. The ram appeared so dignified, so quiet, so harmless! Still, I had no fault to find with my retreat that day.

One day there came a change over the world. Signs of spring came creeping up the valley. The pussy willows put on their silvery furs, the birches and elders unfurled their catkin tassels. Bands of deer and elk began to drift back into the valley; the Bighorn eagerly forsook the heights. The few coyotes that had remained throughout the winter were joined by more of their kin; fresh bobcat tracks appeared daily. The mountain lions that had trailed the deer and elk down to warmer climes, returned close on their heels as their red records testified. On my rambles I often came upon the scenes of their kills; deer, elk and even wary sheep were their victims.

The wet, clinging, spring snows lent themselves readily as recording tablets for the movements of all the woods folk. Not far from the proposed site of my dream cabin, the story of a lion's stalk was plainly told by tracks. He had climbed to the top of a rock that stood ten feet above the level floor of the valley, a huge bowlder that had rolled down from a crag above, torn its way through the ranks of the trees and come to rest at last in the grassy meadow. There he lay in wait for the slowly advancing, grazing deer.

As they approached the rock, the band had split; a section passing on either side of the bowlder. Out and down the lion had leaped—ten feet out and as far down. His momentum had overthrown his victim which had regained its feet and struggled desperately. The turf was torn up for thirty feet beyond the rock. I found only the tracks of the hind feet of the lion; it was not hard to imagine that, his front claws were fastened in the shoulders of his prey, and that his terrible teeth had reached an artery in his victim's neck. Many such slaughters the soft snow revealed! Aroused by them, I determined to revenge the shy, innocent deer family. At every opportunity, I have taken toll of the lion tribe. As soon as the first new grass painted the meadows pale green, the sheep flocked down from their lofty winter resort: the sunshine in the hemmed-in valley was hot; they still wore their heavy winter coats, they grew lazy; hours on end they lay dozing, or moving tranquilly about, feasting on the succulent young shoots. For six or seven months,—it was at least that long ago since my discovery of their uprising migration in Wild Basin—they had been living on dried fare—unbaled hay—with no water to wash it down, for there were no flowing springs about their airy castles. Snow was the only moisture to be had.

I was all eagerness to "shoot" them with my camera! I had watched them so often I felt we were at least acquainted. But out of respect for their tremendous dignity, I decided to keep my plans secret from them, to approach under cover, to creep forward cautiously, soundlessly. To my dismay, as soon as I got within a quarter of a mile of them, some busybody of a sentinel would see me, and if I continued advancing, no matter how stealthily, the flock would move away. It seemed offish, not to say unfriendly; time and again I tried the same tactics, with the same result. I was disappointed and puzzled.

I came to the conclusion that I had presumed too much on our previous friendship, that such regal creatures could not be expected to capitulate after a brief winter's acquaintance. I would visit them in their little valley, learn their peculiarities—who would do less to gain a friend worth while—and gain their confidence. Accordingly, every day I strolled casually in plain sight, over toward their feeding ground. They gradually lost their nervousness at my advances and eventually let me come within a hundred feet of them.

One morning, after several weeks of this chivalrous conduct, I set out with my camera, to spend the day with them. Not that they had extended an invitation, but they unconsciously invited me. There were thirty-two of them, including two huge old rams, grazing at the edge of the valley. I approached them from the windward side, so they would be doubly sure of my identity, for I knew that with their telescopic eyes they would recognize me while I was still a long way off.

I halted first while about a hundred yards distant. Pausing a few moments, I advanced again, until I cut the distance between us in half. I affected the utmost indifference—I lay down to rest, I got up and prowled about. They left off feeding, and bunched together, the wary old rams on the far side of the flock. They gallantly let the ladies and children be first to meet me!

For an hour the game went on. Little by little I cut the distance to thirty feet. Some of them even forgot themselves so much as to lie down and doze, others were discourteous enough to resume feeding, but a canny few continued to watch my every movement sharply. Several times I tried to circle round them; each time they edged away towards the mountain slopes. At last they bunched together beside a jutting rock and made such a beautiful picture, I could no longer control my desire to photograph them. Setting my camera at forty feet, I again slowly advanced. At thirty feet, the sheep still being quiet, I shortened the range. My greediness threatened to be the end of me!

Below my subjects was a smooth rock slope. Having set my camera for twenty-five feet, I ventured across it. If I could only reach the edge of that sloping rock before they took fright what a wonderful picture I'd get! Slowly, inch by inch I crept toward them. My eyes were glued to the finder, my finger trembled at the button, all at once, I stepped out, on nothing! Boy and camera turned over in midair and alighted, amid a shower of cones, in the top of a young spruce tree.

After the first instant of astonishment, my exasperation grew. I had lost my first chance at getting a photograph of the sheep—most likely the best chance I'd ever have, too. Maybe ruined my camera, my clothes, and my hide! My disposition was past mending. My second surprise belittled my first. For when I looked about, expecting the sheep to have vanished, there they all were, crowding forward, and peering over the edge of the rock, in friendly solicitude! How often the unpremeditated exceeds our fondest plans! The picture I finally made far excelled the one I had first counted on!

After my fall, the game was taken up again. The sheep moved higher whenever I came too near them. Sometimes I dropped to all fours and gave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at a chipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands. The sheep crowded forward appreciatively. Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville. No acrobat, no contortionist, ever had a more flatteringly attentive audience. I laughed at my foolishness, but the sheep were courteously grave.

Toward noon the band set off for a steep cliff, where each day they took their siesta. The two old rams led the way. After making pictures of them silhouetted against the sky, I circled the cliff and hid at the end of a ledge. I counted on getting a good photograph when the old leaders surmounted the crag and marched forward at the head of their single-file column. To deceive them, I built a dummy at the spot where they turned aside upon the ledge. Coat and cap and camera case went into the sketchy figure, and after it had been propped in place to block the downward retreat, I hurried around the point and hid in some bushes behind a granite slab, first setting my camera, well camouflaged with stones, atop the rock, and focusing it toward the point where the sheep would pass in review. Minutes passed. Not a sheep rounded the point! More waiting. I sallied forth to reconnoiter. The sheep were feeding peacefully in the valley below. They had knocked down the dummy, trampled over it, and retreated along the ledge the way they had come!

The joke was on me, but it had been a glorious day for all that. I retrieved the remains of my down-trodden dummy and started home. I halted midway down to the valley to study some queer records in the sand. Surely a crazy man had made them! What would a stranger have thought if he had happened upon that grotesque trail? But a stranger had been there. On the heels of my crazy trail were the tracks of a mountain lion. He had been stalking me!

From my experience with these sheep I made some naive deductions and wrote them in my notebook. From it, lying open before me now, I transcribe these boyish but none the less accurate observations:

"Mountain sheep have all-seeing eyes—therefore, one keeps in the open at all times and never attempts stalking them under cover. If you do, you are acting suspiciously, and they will treat you in the same manner."

"They will not permit you to approach from above them. They are lofty minded; so keep your place beneath them."

"If sheep are in the open, and on level ground, they will not permit a near approach."

"Keep in the open, below them, permit them to retreat to the rocks. If these rocks give way to sheer cliffs the sheep will feel at home. They will then permit you to approach quite near."

"Sheep are tremendously curious. Take advantage of this fact and offer them something in the way of entertainment. If you want to get on with sheep, make a fool of yourself."

As spring advanced, the ewes left the flock and sought safety among the cliffs where they raised their young in partial concealment. While their lambs were yet mere infants, a week old or so, they hid them among the rocks. Instinctively the youngsters lay low, remaining immovable until their mothers returned from feeding near by, to claim them. Eagles hovered high overhead, waiting to drop like plummets upon the helpless babies. These great birds accounted for many a bleating little lamb's passing. Lions, likewise, visited the heights and took toll of mothers as well as of offspring; even bobcats pounced upon them. Sometimes coyotes or wolves surprised partly grown sheep, that had brashly ventured too far from sheltering rocks.

While returning home one day I stumbled upon a very young sheep. The youngster lay low, like a wounded duck. Several times I walked within a few feet of him, coming closer each time until at length he sprang up and fled in terror. He took refuge by climbing an almost perpendicular cliff wall. Camera in hand, I followed as best I could. Fifty feet up, he came to a point where even his nimble feet could find no adequate footing. His retreat ended. He scrambled to a little jutting point not much larger than a hand's breadth, and took refuge there with all four feet bunched together.

Carefully I worked up toward him. Several times he bleated for his mother and shifted his position. Every moment I feared he would lose his footing and plunge down the rock face. Twenty feet below I stopped because I could climb no higher. Carefully I turned about and faced the wall, hugging it as closely as possible. Holding the camera at arm's length, and pointing it straight up, I sprung the shutter. The click, slight as it was, startled the lamb. He leaped several feet to another nub of rock, teetered precariously several seconds, then suddenly his pedestal broke off. Sheep and rock dropped straight toward me. To avoid the rock, I sprang sideways. The sheep plunged down upon me as the rock hurtled past. Together we revolved, that sheep and I, the camera being abandoned in midair to shift for itself. Together the struggling youngster and I struck the rock, slid and bounded outward, turning over as we fell, first one on top, then the other, until at length I clutched a bush growing out of a crevice in the slide and stopped myself; but the lamb continued his bouncing fall down the mountain. In all, he must have rolled three hundred feet before he stopped, his feet sticking up out of the brush like the legs of an overturned bench.



It was some time before I was able to walk. But as quickly as possible I went to the rescue of that sheep because I had caused his downfall. He was still breathing, but unable to stand. With great effort, for he was heavy and I was shaking from my fall, I carried him down to the stream and soused him in its icy water. He revived at once. The camera had smashed to pieces before it finished its bouncing flight down the mountain.

After all, it was a great experience, and though it cost me my camera, some of my hide and most of my clothes, I wouldn't have missed it for all Kit Carson's priceless furs!



CHAPTER SIX

A LOG CABIN IN THE WILDS—PRIMITIVE LIVING

At last, that long-anticipated day dawned, when my dream cabin became a reality. High upon a shoulder of Twin Sisters Mountain, a thousand feet above the floor of the valley, where Parson Lamb's ranch stood, overlooking the ruins of Kit Carson's own cabin, I built it. Across the valley, towered Long's Peak and its lofty neighbors. Forty miles of snowcapped peaks were at my dooryard, and beyond, toward the rising sun, hazy plains stretched away to the illimitable horizon. Between its craggy shoulder and the main body of the mountain, lay an unsuspected, wedge-shaped valley, down which a little brook went gurgling. There ancient spruce and yellow pine and quaking aspens grew in sheltered luxuriance.

"Silent valley," I named it, though "Peaceful," or "Hidden," or "Happy" might have fitted it as well. About eighty years previously, as I calculated by the age of the new trees since sprung up, fire had burned over Silent Valley. Many of the fire-killed trees were still standing, sound to the heart. These solid, seasoned trunks, I cut for the logs of my cabin walls. The Parson, almost as excitedly happy as I, lent me a team to drag them to the spot where the house was to stand. They were far too heavy for me to lift, so I had to roll them into place by an improvised system of skids. Construction was a toilsome work; I was not skilled at it, I handled my ax awkwardly, and squandered much energy in "lost motion." But how I sang and shouted at the task! Never could Kit Carson nor any other pioneer have exulted at his building as I did! No wonder the deer paused in the aspen trails and peered timidly out from their leafy retreat in amazement! No wonder those sages, the mountain sheep, watched from the cliffs above with sharp, incredulous eyes. Never before had the ring of an ax echoed in Silent Valley!



My cabin grew, as fast as young shoulders and eager hands could build it. Log walls snugly chinked, and log rafters boarded and sodded; two windows, "lazy" windows we maligned them, because they lay down instead of standing, one sash above the other, and opened by sliding past each other. The few dollars I had saved from my original stake and made from the sale of hides, I spent, extravagantly, it seemed then, for boards to make a door and lay a floor. That lumber cost nine dollars per thousand feet on the job, and had to be hauled eleven miles from a local sawmill—an exorbitant price that made a lasting impression on my thrifty mind and left my old leather pouch flat. That same lumber sells to-day for fifty-two dollars a thousand! Shades of Kit Carson! How fortunate I lived near your time!

Built-in furniture is nothing new, "we pioneers" always used it! From the odds and ends of planks left from the door and floor, I built a wall seat, a chimney corner, a shelf cupboard and a bunk. My scanty furnishings were all homemade—a rough, pine-board table, which served for kitchen, dining and library purposes, and a bench which I always "saved," using the floor before the hearth instead. "Aunt Jane" insisted on giving me a featherbed to put on the rough slats of my bunk, and some pieced quilts; I used my camp blankets for sheets. She gave me, too, a strip of old rag carpet she had brought from her Eastern home.

The crowning architectural feature of my mansion was the corner fireplace, raised of the native granite bowlders. With what care I selected the stones!—choosing those most richly encrusted with green lichens, fitting each into its place, discarding many, ranging afar for others to take their place. Chimney building is a job for an artisan, and even then much of a gamble. Imagine my delight, then, when, the last stone in place, I built a fire on my hearth, and it roared like a furnace, and all the smoke went up, and out, the chimney! Later, the eddying winds sometimes shot prankishly down it and playfully chased the smoke back into the room, but this only blackened the stones, giving my fireplace an air of antiquity.

My open fire was cook stove as well as heater. I added to my camping utensils a Dutch oven, an iron pot with a heavy, deep-rimmed, tight-fitting iron lid, and a tin basin. My furnishings were complete!

Long evenings I sat on the floor before my hearth, dreaming. Sometimes I read, but the windy days outdoors, tramping and climbing, left me relaxed and drowsy. I possessed, perhaps, a dozen books; among them "Treasure Island," which I read over and over, with my door bolted. My imagination gave piratical significance to the sighing of the pine trees and the scampering of the pack rats over my roof.

Yes, my dream cabin was come true. There it stood on its lofty vantage, watching over me as I fared forth on my explorations, waiting faithfully for my return, never reproaching me for my absence, its snug walls always ready to welcome me like sheltering arms, its quickly blazing hearth cheering me like a warm, loving heart. So high was it perched, that I could see it, while on my excursions, from many miles away. It was a beacon to my wandering spirit, a compass and a guide to my wandering feet.

From it, as my knowledge of woodcraft, which I came to know was nothing more than common sense and resourcefulness applied to outdoor living, increased, I ranged farther and farther, into the wilder, more remote regions, which, except for an occasional trapper, no other white man had ever penetrated. The country around my homestead, Long's Peak, and the adjacent mountains, which have since been made a part of Rocky Mountain National Park, is itself exceptionally high and rugged. There, in a comparatively small area, are more than sixty peaks over twelve thousand feet high, Long's, of course, being over fourteen thousand feet. As the years passed my wanderings took me along the Continental Divide, from the Wyoming line at the north to the southern boundary of Colorado.

The vastness of the Rocky Mountains is beyond comprehension, they sprawl the length of the continent. No one can hope to see all their beauty, all their grandeur and awesomeness in a single lifetime. From the crest of the Divide, north, west, and south, stretches a world of rugged peaks. Range on range, tier on tier, like the waves of a solidified ocean in a Titanic storm they roll away to the distant horizon shore.

Always, as a boy, that compelling panorama fascinated me. On pleasant, sunny days, those rugged slopes, from a distance, looked safe and plushy, for all the world like deerskin; the dark green canyons mysteriously beckoned to me, the myriad lakes sparkled knowingly, intimately, the swift brooks chattered incessantly, urging action, adventure. On stormy days, when violent winds swept over the Divide and hid the heads of the peaks beneath the scuttling clouds, that overwhelming vista, with its tremendous, deep-gashed canyons, its towering, forbidding cliffs, still challenged even while it repelled me.

To explore every mile, vertical and horizontal, of that uncharted sea of peaks! That was my boyish ambition! that was what led me westward, that was what lured me on and on! And my field of exploration was limitless—one peak conquered, there was always another just beyond, a little higher, a little harder, waiting to be climbed. The wilder the region the greater was its fascination for me. No matter how difficult, how slow my progress, it never became tedious—there was always the unexpected, the mysterious, as a guarantee against monotony.

Timberline always interested me and those vast, naked plateaus above it never ceased to move me to wonder—miles and miles of great, granite desert, up-flung into space. The very tip-top of the world. I used to marvel that so much of the earth was waste. It was an everlasting enigma.

Timberline was not all grotesque trees with bleak winds forever scourging them. In late summer, it was a veritable hanging garden. Sweet blue and pink forget-me-nots hid in the moss of its bowlders, Edelweiss starred its stony trails. King's crown, alpine primrose, and many other flowers nodded a gracious welcome.

And just below it, what a riot of bloom there was! I had learned, oft to my inconvenience, that the higher the altitude the greater the precipitation. Around and just below timberline are many lakes, and miles of marshy, boggy land. On those first winter excursions to the heights I marveled at the deep snowdrifts banked in the heavy Englemann forests just below timberline. Long after the last white patch had melted or evaporated from the exposed slopes, these sheltered drifts would lie undiminished and when summer really came, they gave birth to scores of trickling rills. Vegetation sprang up in that moist, needle-mulched soil as luxuriant as any in the tropics. From the time the furry anemone lifted its lavender-blue petals above the dwindling snow patch, until the apples formed on the wild rose bushes and the kinnikinic berries turned red, it was a continuous nosegay. Indian paintbrush, marigolds, blue and white columbines as big as my hand and nearly as high as my head, fragile orchids, hiding their heads in the dusky dells, thousands of varieties I never knew or learned. Some few I recognized as glorified cousins of my Kansas acquaintances. The denser towering spruce forests sheltered them, conserved the moisture, and scattered their needles over their winter beds.

In spite of the Parson's experienced advice on my first trips, boylike, I ladened myself with blanket roll, cooking utensils and an unnecessary amount of food. I soon found, however, that besides tiring me early in the afternoon and robbing me of my zest for scenery, my pack limited the scope of my operations, for with it I did not dare attempt many precipitous slopes where a single slip might land me in eternity. I found, too, that without it I could practically double the length of a day's journey, and arrive at the end of it still fresh enough to enjoy things. So I soon simplified my camp equipment. Campfires took the place of blankets, a pocketful of raisins, a few shelled peanuts, some sweet chocolate bars provided satisfying feasts. Eventually, when I became adept at snaring game, I made a spit of twigs and roasted the game over hot coals.

Sometimes this primitive method of camping was inconvenient, but it was lots of fun. It was pioneering! What boy has not wished himself Robinson Crusoe? Somehow, in this way I retrieved that early frontier period passed before my birth. So I met the challenge of the mountains, met whatever emergencies arose, with such resourcefulness as I could muster; made my own way with what ingeniousness I possessed, and lived off the land. Indians could do no more!

Having given up my gun, I learned other, and for me, at least, more reliable methods of taking game for food. Setting snares was an intriguing sport, but when I did not have time for it, I resorted to a more primitive method, stone-throwing. Of course there were days when neither of these methods succeeded, when the meal hour had to be postponed, while I whetted my appetite, rather superfluously, with more miles of tramping. I was surprised to find I could go foodless for several days and still have strength to plod ahead and maintain my interest in the scenery.

The cottontail of the Rockies is the commonest and easiest source of meat, not only to the camper, but to the rabbit's cannibalistic neighbors. He is a sort of universal food—a sort of staff of life to the animal world. But for him famine would stalk the big killers. Fortunately for himself and for his preying foes, he is most prolific, and holds his own, in numbers at least, despite man and beast. Occasionally some ravaging disease carries his kind off by the thousands, then starvation faces those dependent on him for food. The killers have to seek other hunting grounds, frequently far from their home range, and often they become gaunt and lank, driven to take desperate chances to save themselves from starvation and death.

As you can easily imagine, it keeps Bunny Cottontail moving to outwit his many enemies. He has no briar patches in that rugged country, though the jumper thickets might serve as such, so he lives beneath the rocks, usually planning a front and back door to his burrow. In this way he has a private exit when weasels or bobcats make their uninvited visitations. A whole Rooseveltian family of bunnies live in congested districts. Learning this, I usually set a number of snares in their runways, or at likely holes beneath the rocks.

Part of the game of making nature yield one a living is keeping an eye out at all times for possible food supplies. If a rabbit scurried across my path, I marked the spot of his refuge. If he dodged beneath a certain slab, I set my snare there. Then I poked about, hoping to scare him into the snare. I did not always succeed in this, though, for my stick could not turn the corners of his burrow, and he often appeared out of some other exit, laughing at my stupidity, no doubt. Sometimes, when very hungry, I tried smoking him out. The stone porch of his burrow usually sloped, so a small smudge started at its lower side would travel up-hill, into the tunnel. Mr. Rabbit, thinking the woods were on fire, would make a dash for the open and fall victim to the snare. But despite the fact that rabbits are credited with little wit, I have often known them to nose aside my traps and escape.

Cottontails I found up to eight or nine thousand feet, but even higher I ran across their cousins, the snowshoe. He quite excelled me in manipulating his "webs"—his tremendous hind feet with long, clawlike toes, covered with stiff and, I judged, waterproof hairs. He made his way nimbly over the soft, deep snow, while I on my webs often floundered and fell. Like the ptarmigan and the weasel, the snowshoe rabbit changed to a white coat for winter. In the spring, he was bluish, though underneath he still retained his arctic snowiness. In the fall, with good taste and a sense of the fitness of things, he put on a tan coat, and then, as the winter snows began to drift, he once more donned his ermine robes.

Grouse were plentiful, except during the winter months. Usually I found them between six thousand and nine thousand feet altitude, but as the fall coloring painted the mountain slopes, and the juniper berries ripened, they moved to the higher, exposed wind-swept cliffs. Above timberline were the ptarmigan, always easy targets for a well-aimed stone.

Rabbits, grouse and ptarmigan were all available and filling, but the most abundant and most easily caught food in all the Rockies at that time were the mountain trout. When I was a boy, every stream, even as far down as the plains, was alive with them. Like salmon, they swam upstream till they came to rapids or cataracts which they could not leap. Those in the lakes were exceptionally large, but too well fed to be interested in my bait. In the valleys were deep pools made by beavers' dams and in these the trout "holed up" for the winter. Fishing through the ice was common sport years ago. I remember that one of Jim Oss's neighbors brought a mess of trout to him when he gave his homesteading dance in January. With fish so abundant and unwary, and fishermen few, fishing was easy. It took me only five or ten minutes to catch all the trout I could use. Usually a few feet of line, a hook, and a willow or aspen rod, was all I found necessary. Sometimes I used bait—grasshoppers, bugs or worms.

Campfire cooking is an art comparatively primitive and elementary, but it requires experience and intelligence to master. Like most accomplishments worth learning, it takes application, and a world of patience. Since I did not carry any utensils with me, I invariably roasted or broiled the game I cooked, using hot rocks like the Indians. I heated stones in my campfire, dug a shallow hole, and when the stones were hot lined it with them, then put in my meat, covering it with a hot flat stone. From time to time, I renewed the cooled first stones for fresh ones, hot from the fire. Sometimes I intensified that heat of my "fireless" by covering its top with moss or with pine needles.

If I decided to broil my bunny or grouse, I got out my short fishing line and tied one end of it to a limb of a tree or to a tripod which I made by fastening three poles together, setting them over the fire. The other end I fastened to a green stick, three or four feet long, which I skewered into the meat. Then I gave my "broiler" a spin which wound up the line. When it was twisted tight, it reversed itself, unwinding, and so revolving my cookery, exposing all sides to the fire. Of course it gradually lost its spin, then I gave it another twirl. Given plenty of time, over a slow fire of glowing coals, my bird would be done to a queen's taste—a much too delicious dish to waste on any king!

During dry, warm weather, I raked pine or spruce needles together for a bed, but in the winter I used green pine or spruce boughs, putting heavy, coarse ones on the bottom, planting their butt ends deeps in the snow. Upon these I placed smaller twigs, which gave "spring" to my couch, and finally I tufted it with the soft, tender tips of the branches. Never have I rested better on mahogany beds than I did on such pungent bunks! Lying there, physically weary, mentally relaxed, drowsily gazing into my campfire, I lived over the day's adventures, and would not have changed places with any man alive!

I found making camp in temperate weather was no task at all. It was when it was cold or wet that the real test of my woodcraft came. I learned that the first requisite in camp-making was the selection of a suitable camp site. It had to be chosen with thought of the accessibility to fuel and water. It had to be sheltered from the wind, which was not always easy to manage in high altitudes, for though the prevailing winter wind in the Rockies blows from the west, it swirls and eddies in the canyons, coming from most unexpected and unwelcome directions and often from all points of the compass in turn. Usually ready-made camps, overhanging cliffs, were available. When they were not, my ingenuity rose to the occasion and I thatched together twigs of willow or birch, or even spruce or pine, though the latter were stiffer and more difficult to fit tightly together. Beginning at the bottom, I worked upward, lapping each successive layer over the one beneath, as in laying shingles, and pointing the tips of the leaves or needles downward, so they would shed water.

Sometimes I had difficulty in starting my fire. If there had been daily showers for weeks, and the needles and the deadwood, as well as the ground itself, were soaked, or if in winter the deadwood were buried beneath snow and the dead limbs of standing trees difficult to break off, it was a discouraging task. Sometimes after what seemed like eons of struggling, I would get a sickly little flame flickering, when, puff! along would come a blast of wind and smother it out with snow. I did learn eventually that pitch knots were so rich in gum or resin that they would always catch fire, and so I shaved off splinters with my trusty hunting knife and used them for tinder. One night as I lighted a candle in my cabin, it came to me that a piece of it would be handy to tuck in my pocket for emergencies. Ever afterwards I carried several short, burned-down ends along on my excursions. I discovered that one of these stubs, set solidly on the ground and lighted, would start my fire under the most adverse conditions. But for them I would have had many a cold camp.

I had read of the Eskimo igloos and I tried to make them. But the snow at hand in my mountains was never packed hard enough to freeze solid so building blocks could be cut from it. It is blown about and drifted too much. I did get an idea from "Buck" in Jack London's "Call of the Wild," that I adapted. On winter explorations I always carried snowshoes, even though not compelled to wear them at the outset. These made handy shovels. When ready to make camp I selected a snowdrift three or four feet deep, and with my web shovel dug a triangular hole, about seven feet long on each side. In the angle farthest from the wind I built my fire. It soon assisted me in enlarging the corner. Opposite it, I roofed over my dugout with dead limbs, thatching them with green boughs, and finally heaping the excavated snow over all. I had a practically windproof nest which a little fire would keep snug and warm. True I had to fire up frequently throughout the night, for a big blaze is too hot in a snow-hole, but I soon learned to rouse up, put on more fuel, and drop back to sleep, all in a few minutes.

But the smoke nuisance in my early dugouts was terrible. Pittsburgh had nothing on me! Many a morning I crawled out smelling like a smoked ham, my eyes smarting, my throat sore and dry. Years later, my rambles led me to Mesa Verde and the kivas of the cliff dwellers. Those primitive people built fires deep underground, with no chimneys or flues to conduct the smoke outside. They ingeniously constructed cold air passages down to the floor of the kivas near the fire bowl. These fed the fires fresh air, causing the smoke to rise steadily and pass out through a small aperture in the roof. I tried this, and to my delight, found it rid me of the strangling plague.

I had discarded my gun, but my camera was with me always. Frequent dashing showers are common in the mountains. Often, too, I had to cross swollen streams, and sometimes got a ducking in transit. Matches, salt and camera plates were ruined by wetting, so I had to contrive a waterproof carrier for them. I hit upon a light rubber blanket, which added practically no pounds or bulk to my pack, and in it wrapped my perishables. It saved them more often than not, but even it could not protect them in some predicaments.

There, was no month of the year I didn't camp out. Naturally I was caught in many kinds of weather. In severe storms I learned to stick close to camp, lying low and waiting for the furies to relent. In the early days, as in my first camp, I attempted to return home at once, but traveling over the soft, yielding snow only sapped my strength and got me nowhere. I learned that by remaining inactive by my campfire, I conserved both food and energy and had a far better chance to reach the shelter of my cabin without mishap.

Being young and inexperienced, I was the recipient of much free advice, the most common being warnings about the imminent weather or the oncoming winter. Most of these prognosticators used the cone-storing squirrels or the beavers, working busily on their dams and houses, as barometers. But I found the old adage that only fools and newcomers could forecast weather to hold true in the mountains. I got so I didn't believe in signs. I saw the squirrels and the beavers make preparation for winter every fall. I took each day, with its vagaries, as it came and made the best of it.

Returning from one of my midwinter trips to the wilds, one day I coasted down a very steep slope and shot out of the woods into a little clearing—a snug log cabin stood there, buried in snow up to its eyes. In a snow trench, not far from the door, an old trapper was chopping wood. As I burst upon the scene he dropped his ax and stared at me. Then he found words.

"See all fools ain't dead yit," he observed with a grin. Then, as I started on he yelled after me.

"But I bet they soon will be!"



So I spent the days of my boyhood—tramping, climbing, exploring! Was ever another mortal so fortunate as I in the realization of his dreams? Was ever another lad so happy?



CHAPTER SEVEN

GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES

When I first came West, with my imagination fired by the reminiscent tales of my mother and my father, and our pioneer neighbors, I looked only for mountains made of gold, for roaming buffaloes and skulking savages, for fierce wild beasts and mighty hunters. That the mountains were golden only in the sunset, and the Indians and bison alive only in the immortal epics of the frontier, somehow did not disappoint me. So wonderful were those rocky upheavals in the reality, so intriguing were the traces of redskin and buffalo, I forgot my fantastic misconceptions. To my enthusiastic youth, everything was extraordinary, alluring, primitively satisfying. Parson Lamb said the big game were gone, but there were enough left to give me many a thrill.

Naturally, at first, I saw only the more obvious wonders of the wilds, but as time passed I discovered other sources of interest, hitherto unheard of. High and dry upon the meadows and lower mountain sides were smooth, round bowlders, undoubtedly water-worn. The granite walls of many of the canyons I climbed were curiously scored—here and there were inlaid bands of varying colored stone. Running out from the loftier ranges were long, comparatively narrow heaps of earth, which resembled giant railroad fills as flat on top as though they had been sliced off by a titanic butcher knife. They were covered with forests, and small, jewel-like lakes were set in their level summits. At the foot of Long's and many other peaks were more lakes, with slick, glazed, granite sides. The water in them was usually greenish and always icy. There were immense, dirty "snowdrifts" that never diminished, but appeared to be perpetual.

Following my trapline or trailing the Big-horn or watching the beaver, I noticed these things and wondered about them. How came those bowlders, round and polished, so far from water? What made those scratches upon those granite cliffs? What Herculean master-smith fused those decorative belts into their very substance? What engineer built those table-topped mounds? Who had gouged out the bowls for those icy lakes? Why were some snowdrifts perennial? I puzzled over these conundrums, until, bit by bit, I solved them. The answers were more amazing than anything else I encountered in the wilds.

I learned that those sand-coated drifts were not drifts at all, but glaciers, probably the oldest living things in the world. For they were alive, moving deposits of ice and snow, the survivors of the ice age. Eons ago, they and their like had gouged out the huge bowls which later became lakes, had gashed the earth and scoured its canyon walls, leaving in their wakes those square-topped dumps or moraines; debris, once solid granite, now ground into rocks and sand and gravel by their slow-moving, irresistible force.

Most of the glaciers I found were upon the eastern slope of the Divide. This is because the prevailing winter winds are from west to east. Glaciers are formed by thawing of the exposed snow on top of the huge deposits, the water trickling down through the moss, and freezing solidly. Gradually, through continued thawing and freezing, the whole drift is changed into a field of ice. The first sign of movement comes when the mass of ice breaks away from the cliffs at its upper edges. There is an infinitesimal downward sagging, as with incredible deliberation it moves on with its cargo of rock and sand. But, slowly as it moves, its power is overawing. A glacier is the embodiment of irresistible force. Its billion-ton roller cuts a trench through the very earth, with canyon-like walls; these latter turn upon their master and imprison him. It tears immense granite slabs from the cliffs and carries them along. It grinds granite into powder. I have seen water emerging from glaciers, milk-white with its load of ground-up rocks.

By setting a straight line of stakes across the ice, I measured the movements of some glaciers. Some progressed several feet in a year, others traveled scarcely more than a few inches. All moved farthest nearest the center; for, as is true of streams, there the friction of the side walls does not retard them. They varied in width from a hundred feet to half a mile, in depth from forty to a hundred feet.

During my first years in the Rockies, the winters were severe, with heavy snows, and the summers unusually rainy. The low temperature and great precipitation prevented the usual amount of thawing on the glaciers. But there came a season as arid as any in the Sahara desert.

"It's miserable droughty," grieved the Parson one day when I met him on top of Long's Peak. "Springs are going dry and the streams are terrible low. See that drift down there?" Standing on Long's overtowering summit he pointed down the Divide. "The one with black rock at its edge. Well, sir, I've never seen that drift so small before—not in all the thirty years I've watched it. The glaciers will be opening up with all this hot weather! the crevasses'll widen and split clear down to the bowels of the earth. Wal; it's an ill wind that blows no good. This drought will make it easy for the tenderfoot to get a good look into 'em."

I took the Parson's tip and next day packed a horse and started for Arapahoe glacier which lies south of Long's Peak. On the second day out, having taken my pack-horse as far up as possible, I unpacked him, hobbled him and turned him loose to crop what grass he could find. Then I set up camp.

Camp made, I began the last lap of my climb up the glacier. Along the way, below snowbanks, wild flowers grew head-high, but in the woods beside the game trails they were scarce and stunted. As I plodded slowly up the steep slope I heard loud reports, as though some one were setting off heavy blasts. They echoed and reechoed among the cliffs. A roaring stream dashed frothily down the slope, rocks rolled past. I climbed a pinnacle overlooking the glacier and looked down upon it.

The Parson was right. All the snow which ordinarily hid the icy surface was melted away. The glacial ice lay uncovered. Its surface was split by numberless yawning crevasses. Water drenched their sides. Every little while ice would break away, and then reports, similar to the ones I had heard on my way up, would nearly deafen me.

I climbed gingerly down and edged out upon the glacier, testing each foothold. I peeped into the crevasses, and dropped stones or chunks of ice into them to sound their depths. I ventured into a shallow crack and followed it until it pinched beneath a wall of solid ice. Then I tried another, a larger one. Gaining a little courage by these explorations, I ventured yet farther and climbed down into one of the deeper crevasses. Water showered down upon me, from melting walls above. I crept on down until I was about fifty feet below the top of the glacier. I paused; before me gaped a dark cavern fenced off by heavy icicles as large as my body. I peered through this crystal lattice into the darkness beyond. From somewhere came the tinkle of water, I decided to investigate. A stream pouring into the crevasse from above, had washed down a stone. Using it for a sledge, I set to work to break into that barred vault. I shattered one of the glassy bars and crawled inside. A ghostly blue light filled the place. With lighted candle I moved away from the entrance, turned a corner and plunged into the blackest darkness I have ever experienced.

The silence was eerie, frightening. Just then it was shattered by a muffled report, followed almost at once by another that seemed to rend my cavern walls asunder. Bits of ice dropped about me. I suddenly remembered a number of things I wanted to do outside, I turned and sought the guarded cavern of the ghastly light. I mistook the way and turned aside into a blind alley for a moment. I grew panicky—my flesh went clammy—but that momentary delay no doubt saved my life. As I reached the opening, there came a rending crash, a splintering of ice, and broken blocks came hurtling into the crevasse just outside my cavern door. An inrush of air snuffed out my candle.

My hands trembled as I relighted the candle. Ice still bombarded the opening. Somewhere water splashed. Before I had descended into the crevasse I had been perspiring freely, for the sun shone hot upon the surface of the glacier; now I was shivering, my feet were soaked with ice water, a dozen little streams trickled down from the cavern roof. I would soon be warm in the hot sun outside; then... I discovered the crevasse was blocked with ice.

I lost my head and shouted for help. There were none to hear. I pushed against the barriers. I pulled myself together and began to search for a passage among the blocks of ice. The candle gave a feeble light. Without waiting to feel my way, I edged into a crack, wriggled forward and stuck tight. Cold sweat oozed as I wiggled backward into the cavern again. I had difficulty relighting the candle. Again and again I attempted to squeeze out among the pieces of broken ice; I climbed up the smooth wall, lost my footing and tumbled back. At last I found a larger opening among the ice blocks and squeezed into it like a rabbit into a rock pile. I knew I must hurry because these jumbled pieces would soon be solidly cemented together when the water pouring over them froze.

I surged desperately against the pressing ice, held my breath and squeezed my way through into the sunshine at last—safe. Late that evening I reached my camp, my interest in glaciers chilled.

Since that experience I have usually looked long before leaping into a crevasse and then have not leaped.

The next morning I broke camp. I had had enough of close-ups of glaciers. I followed the crest of the Continental Divide northward, satisfied with such distant views of those treacherous juggernauts as could be had from the rim rocks.

That was how I came to be camped at timberline above Allen's Park when the big forest fire set the region south of it ablaze. From my lofty station I watched a thunder shower gather around Long's Peak and move southward, tongues of lightning darting from it venomously. It was perhaps ten miles wide. It circled Wild Basin, then faced eastward toward the foothills, its forked tongues writhing wickedly. Those to the south struck repeatedly; I counted three fires they started, but two of these the shower extinguished; the third was miles beyond the edge of the rain, and began spreading even as I watched. Smoke soon hid the doomed forest, filling the canyon and boiling out beyond it.

Everywhere in the mountains, I had found burned-over forests; ancient trees that had stood for centuries, had endured drought, flood, storm and pestilence, only to be burned at last by a fiendish flash and left, charred skeletons of their former green beauty.

I hurried down from the heights as the fire spread upward along both sides of the gorge. Upon a bare, rocky ridge, several miles north, inside the edge of the shower limits, I deposited my pack and turned the horse homeward, alone. I hoped that I might be able to put out the fire before it spread too far.

As I hurried in its direction I saw two deer standing in a little opening watching the smoke intently. They showed no fear, merely curiosity. But as I approached closer to its smouldering edge, I met birds in excited, zig-zagging flight. Along a brook I found fresh bear tracks. Bruin had galloped hastily from the danger zone.

The fire was confined to the heavy timber near the bottom of a canyon, but was licking its way up both slopes, the backfire eating slowly downward while the headfire leaped upward. Trees exploded into giant sparklers. The heat of the approaching flames caused the needles to exude their sap, combustion occurred almost before the actual fire touched them. Black acrid smoke arose visible a hundred miles out on the plains.

Not a breeze stirred where I stood, but the fire seemed fanned by a strong wind, that swayed it back and forth. It did not travel in a set direction; one moment it raced westward, paused, smoldered, then burst forth again, running southward. A little later a flood of flame would come toward the east. These scattered sorties cut narrow swaths through the forest, flaming lanes that smoldered at the edges, widened and combined.

The smoke cloud grew denser. My eyes streamed with tears, my throat burned, I began to cough. I descended the ridge to cross the canyon—in the bottom I found little smoke and fairly good air.

Flocks of panic-stricken birds veered uncertainly about. They would flee the fire, encounter dense smoke, and turn straight back toward the flames. They circled and alighted at the bottom of the gorge. No sooner safely there, then they'd take wing again and flutter back into the trees near the fire. Many dropped, overcome by the smoke, whole flocks disappeared into the roaring flames to return no more. They lost all sense of direction, all instinct for self-preservation.

But the birds were not alone in their distress; the animals, too, were on the move. Down the slopes came deer, does with their young, bucks with tender, growing horns. To my surprise, they paid no attention to me. Whether they were unable to get my scent because of the fumes of burning woods, or whether the fire filled them with a greater fear, I could not decide. A coyote trotted calmly down a game trail, eyed me for a moment, and went on his way toward safety. He was the only one of the wild folk able to keep his wits about him.

Occasionally one of the deer would break away from the refugees, head up or down without apparent reason, the rest of the band instantly following his lead. In less than a minute all would return. They feared to desert their usual haunts in time of trouble. The smoke robbed them of their sense of smell, the noise of the fire was too loud for their usually alert, big ears to catch the smaller, significant sounds. As their confusion grew their terror mounted; they bundled nervously away in all directions, rushing back together, heading upstream toward the fire, and leaping wildly over smoldering needles of the forest floor.

The fawns were deserted, their mothers dashed about frantically as though unable to recognize their own offspring; they snorted wildly to rid their noses of the biting fumes that robbed them of scent. A fawn stopped within a few feet of me and stared about with luminous, innocent eyes. Its hair was singed and its feet burned. It lifted its left hind foot and stared at it perplexed; then I saw between its dainty, parted hoofs a burning stick.

Other animals passed. A badger waddled slowly down the trail, pausing to grin at me comically. Two beavers splashed downstream, following the water, diving through the deeper pools and lumbering through the shallows of the brook. Other animals crashed through the woods, but I could not recognize them.

A little brook sizzled down through the burning land. I stopped and, cupping my hands, scooped up some water and drank thirstily. The first swallow nearly strangled me, it was saturated by the fumes of the burning forest. I drank on nevertheless; it was wet and cooling to my parched throat. I soused my head in the brook and soaked my handkerchief in case of need.

A faint breeze sprang up. Circling the fire, I moved up the slope, with the wind at my back. The needle-carpeted forest floor was a smoldering mass—the squirrels' hidden hoards were afire. Young trees, just starting from those stored-up nurseries were destroyed by tens of thousands.

On raced the head fire, setting the dead trees and stumps furiously aflame, touching the needles of the living trees with swift, feverish fingers, igniting insidious spot-fires as it went. Its self-generated draft roared thunderingly. It snatched up countless firebrands and sent those flaming heralds forth to announce its coming to the trembling forest beyond. As it topped the canyon walls it seemed to leap beyond the clouds that hovered overhead and burn asunder the very heavens.

Of a sudden I was enveloped by one of its serpentine arms. It writhed everywhere around me, hissing, striking at my face, singing my hair, scorching my frantic hands that would ward it off. My eyes could not face that venomous glare. My lungs were choked by its searing breath. I found a stick and, feeling my way with it, fled, like the beaver, to the brook for sanctuary. That flaming serpent pursued me. Its breath grew more acrid, more deadly. I coughed convulsively, strangled, stumbled, fell: when I regained my feet, I was dazed, confused. But I retained consciousness enough to know I must keep moving. I must reach the fire's immemorial enemy and enlist the aid of that watery ally to escape it. I took leaps over the ground, but blindly, with no such brilliant eyes as my relentless foe.

The memory of that race for life is still vividly terrifying; blinded, choking, crashing into trees, falling, struggling to my feet, fighting on and on and on, for what seemed endless hours. In reality it was—it could only have been—a few moments. I plunged into the brook and submerged my burning clothes, my tortured body. I hurried on as fast as I could, downstream, halting now and then to dive beneath the grateful waters of the deeper pools, but never stopping, until, staggering, gasping, sobbing, I reached the safety of the canyon.



CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PROVERBIAL BUSY BEAVER

It was my boyish ambition to find some corner of those rocky wilds where no human being had ever set foot and to be the first person to behold it. What boy has not felt that Columbus had several centuries' advantage of him: that Balboa was a meddlesome old chap who might better have stayed in Spain and left American oceans to American boys to discover? Oh! the unutterable regret of youthful hearts that the Golden Fleece and the Holy Grail and other high adventures passed before their time!

In searching for my virgin wilderness, I saw many spots that bore no trace of human existence, wild enough, remote enough, calm enough, to justify my willing credulity.

But I had another notion which even my young enthusiasm had to acknowledge was in error. I fancied that the animals in such a spot as I have described, unwise to the ways of man, having had no experience to teach them fear and caution, would be gentle and trusting, and approachable. I was doomed to disappointment. I found that no matter how remote the region, how primeval its forests or how Eden-new its streams, its beasts were furtive, wary, distrustful.

But after all, though these ideas, like many of my other youthful dreams, did not "pan out" in following them up, I found other leads which yielded rich experiences.

When I first came to the mountains, the beavers were extremely wild. Rarely did I glimpse one or even see signs of their activities. True, all along the streams were deserted beaver homes, merely stick frames with most of the mud plaster fallen off, and through the meadows were a succession of dams which might easily have flooded them for miles around. No doubt large colonies had once lived there. Once in a while I found a fallen aspen, with the marks of a beaver's keen chisels upon it. But as for the beaver's renowned industry—it wasn't!

"I thought beavers were busy animals," I complained to the Parson. "I've heard industrious folks called beavers all my life. I don't see how they got their reputation. Why, it wouldn't be hard for me to be busier'n these beavers!"

The old man laughed.

"Now, you're rather hard on the little critters," he defended. "They're not so indolent, considering their chances." Then he went on to explain.

A horde of trappers, he said, had followed Kit Carson's successful trip into the region in 1840. They visited every stream and strung traps in all the valleys. Beaver fur was taken out by pack-train load. In twenty years the trappers had reaped the richest of the harvest; in ten years more they had practically "trapped out" all the beavers. They left only when trapping ceased to be profitable; and even so, the early settlers had found some small profit in catching a few beavers every winter.

The survivors, my old friend said, were wiser if sadder animals than those the first trappers found. Many beavers had maimed or missing feet, reminders of the traps that caused their trouble. They deserted their ponds, neglected their dams and houses and sought refuge in holes in the banks of streams. Their tunnels entered the bank under water, thus making it difficult to locate their runways, or to set traps after the discovery of the runways.

So that was the reason for the beavers scarcity and wariness! Few were the chances they gave me, on my early rambles, to observe their habits. But just when it seemed they were doomed to suffer the fate of the buffalo, Colorado and a few other states woke up to the fact that beavers were threatened to be classed with the dodo, and feeble measures were taken to protect them. Slowly their numbers increased, they returned to their normal habits of living, and rebuilt their dams and houses.

Down in the valley below my cabin, within a few rods of the spot where the ruins of Kit Carson's cabin still stand, are two small streams along which I early found numerous traces of beaver. At the confluence of these streams were dams and houses that were not entirely deserted; for occasionally the beavers did some repair work. Since they were within five minutes' walk of my cabin I visited them frequently during all seasons of the year. Five times I saw the beavers return to the old home site, repair the dams and rebuild the houses. Four times I saw them forced to desert their home, once because a fire burned the surrounding trees which were their source of food, the other times to elude trappers.

I discovered that this colony consisted of a trap-maimed old couple and their annual brood. The male had lost a portion of his right hind foot, his mate had only a stump for her left front one. I early dubbed them Mr. and Mrs. Peg, and came to have a real neighborly affection for them. Their infirmities made it easy for me to keep track of them, and to keep up with their social activities. Neighborly interest must be kept alive by the neighbors' doings, you know!

They certainly showed no inclination to become dull from overwork! About the time the ice on their pond began to break up, they would take their youngsters and start upon their summer vacation. Upon a number of occasions I found their familiar tracks along the streams eight or ten miles below their home site; once more than fifteen miles away. On their rambles they met other beaver families, and stopped to visit; the young people of the combined families played and splashed about, while their more sedate elders lay contentedly basking in the sun.

But late August or early September always saw Mr. and Mrs. Peg back home; usually without their youngsters. Those precocious paddlers had set up homes for themselves or had wedded into other tribes. The old couple at once set to work, toiling night and day, taking no time off for rest. They repaired their dam to raise the water to the desired level, replastered their house inside and out with mud, and in addition cut down a number of aspen trees, severed their trunks into lengths they could handle, and brought both trunks and limbs down into the pond. They towed the heavy green wood down first and piled it in the deep water near their house, the rest they piled upon these until their larder was full. They ate the whole of the smaller limbs of the aspen, but only the bark of the larger boughs and trunks. They used the wood for house and dam construction.

Trappers have told me that the streams beaver live in are poor fishing places because the furry inhabitants eat the fish. By careful observation, I proved to my own satisfaction at least, that quite the opposite is true. For the deep ponds made by the dams they build are literally spawning pools for the trout, breeding grounds and hatcheries. They are also pools of refuge, to which the fish flee to elude the fisherman, and in their warmer depths the finny tribe "hole up" when the streams are frozen over in winter. I have lain motionless upon a bowlder overlooking a beaver-inhabited stream and watched large trout lazing about almost within reach of a preoccupied paddler, apparently in no alarm over his nearness. Neither paid the other "any mind." I am sure that beavers eat neither fish nor flesh.

Which reminds me that early in my mountain experience I happened upon an old trapper's log cabin and stopped to visit him. Mountain hospitality generously insists that guests be fed, no home or hut is too poor to provide a bite for the chance visitor. Upon this occasion I was handed a tin plate with some meat on it.

"Guess what it is," my host urged.

I tasted the meat, examined it, smelled it and tried to make out what it was. It tasted somewhat like venison, yet not quite the same. It had something the flavor of cub-bear steak broiled over a campfire, but it was sweeter and not so strong. I guessed wrong several times before the trapper informed me.

"Beaver tail," he laughed, pleased at outwitting me.

Still chuckling he went outside to a little log meat house and returned with a whole beaver tail for my inspection. The tail was about ten inches in length, nearly five inches wide at the broadest part and perhaps an inch thick. The skin that covered the tail was dark in color and very tough, suggestive of alligator skin. The meat of the beaver tail was much prized by explorers and trappers, and visitors, such as I, were often given this meat as a special treat.

The old fellow talked at length about the wise ways of the beaver he had caught. Though I made note of a number of his observations for future reference, I was skeptical of their authenticity. As years passed and I talked with many men, I found that their observations varied greatly. They were not always unprejudiced observers, their observations were colored by their personal point of view, under diverse conditions.

I early learned that trappers and hunters, as a rule, are not real nature students. They are killers, and killers have not the patience to wait and watch, to take painstaking care and limitless time in the study of an animal. They will spend only a few minutes watching an animal that a man without a gun might study for days, or even weeks. They are prone to snap judgment. Then their over-active imaginations supply ready misinformation for missing facts.

"A beaver has as many wives as he can git," my host informed me as we sat before his fire. "There's some that don't have many, and agin there's some that have a lot, and that's the reason we find some ponds with only a little house an' others with mighty big ones."

A Brigham Youngish sort of conception of beaver domestic economy!

That same summer another trapper in Middle Park, not many miles from the first, gave me his version of a beaver's domestic life.

"Don't think they mate at all," he told me; "they're always working to beat time or else they're wanderin' off somewhere lookin' up good cuttin' timber and dam sites."

Now, I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Peg were mated, and for life. Indeed, I believe all beavers mate for life. They are by nature domestic, home-loving and industrious, and provident, storing up food for the winter, making provision against the time food will be scarce because of snow and ice. They have the cooperative instinct and often combine their efforts, constructing a house large enough for the whole colony in the deepest water of the pond, all joining in the harvesting of green aspen or cottonwood.

Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs. Their tribe increased as the years passed, and the shielding laws of the state protected them. I called their group the "Old Settlers" colony.



One fall the Old Settlers abandoned their pond and constructed an entirely new dam above it, thus solving a number of problems. Sand and gravel carried down by the swift little stream had settled in the still water of the pool and almost filled it. The ever-increasing family outgrew the old house. All the near-by aspens had been cut; this necessitated the dragging of trees too great a distance before they could be pushed into the water and floated down. Coyotes had surprised and killed a number of the Old Settlers' kin as they worked on the long portage to the stream, and I am sure that the moving of their home was partly to overcome this danger.

Then it was they earned the title, "Busy Beaver"! How they worked! That was before the days of ubiquitous automobiles and the beavers had not become nocturnal in their habits. They swarmed everywhere. Certain ones were detailed to inspect the dam, make necessary repairs and maintain the water at the same level all the time. Others worked at the new house, piling sicks and mud into a heap. It grew, the dam was raised, so the water was maintained within a few inches of the top of the unfinished wall. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of some workers in the deep water or near the shores of the ponds; they were digging safety-firsts, water escapes for emergency use. These canals led from the house to either bank and connected with tunnels that had their openings concealed beneath the surface of the water. Thus, should their pond be drained suddenly, they could escape by the canals to their emergency homes beneath the bank.

Other beavers worked in the aspen grove, felling trees and cutting them into lengths that could be pushed or pulled or rolled to the bank and floated down the stream. Their work was impeded by the jamming of the logs in a narrow rocky neck down which they had to be skidded into the water.

Then the engineers decided upon the construction of a canal around the rocky falls. They started digging at a point upstream, beyond the troublesome neck, swung outward, away from the water to the fringe of aspens, then back again to the stream below the rocks. In all the canal was two hundred feet long, about two feet wide and averaged fifteen inches deep. For a time all other work was suspended, and night and day the whole population toiled on the canal. Apparently each beaver had his own section to dig, and each went about his work in his own way. With tooth and claw they worked. Often they cut slides or runways down the sides of the canal giving them roads up which they carried their loose dirt.

For thirty-seven nights they toiled in the dry ditch, then turned water in, and completed the work of deepening the canal. This transportation system saved them much labor and delay, and provided a safe route to and from the grove, for they could dive into the water when their enemies attacked.

I suspected Mr. and Mrs. Peg directed the storing away of that wood, for it was piled in the deep water beside the house, now rising majestically several feet about the level of the pool, just as they always did theirs. The green wood was almost as heavy as the water, and required little weight to force it under. Thus they always had some food in their icebox, where they could reach it handily when the pool froze over. I have observed other beavers on larger streams come out of their tunnels in the banks and find food along the shores throughout the winter months. But the smaller the stream the closer the beaver sticks to his pond. This I believe is a matter of safety for beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their pool they fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, wolves and mountain lions.

One day while following one of the small tributaries of the St. Vrain River south of Long's Peak, I heard a loud explosion just ahead of me, and when I emerged from the fringing woods I discovered two men busy dynamiting the largest of the three beaver dams in the valley.

"Mining didn't pan out much," one of them replied in answer to my question, "so we callated we'd take sum beaver fur to tide us over the winter."

They were prospectors, out of grub, up against starving or getting a job in the foothills town below, until with their golden promises, they could again talk some sympathetic listener out of a grub stake. Not content with obtaining beaver by the usual but slower method of trapping, they had decided to blow up the dam, drain the pond and shoot the animals as they sought to escape. Their rifles lay ready to their hands.

For hours I lingered, to see what luck they would have. They set off three heavy charges before the dam was shattered. When the water was nearly drained out—it took but a few minutes—they grabbed their guns. Not a beaver did any of us see.

They then set a charge of powder against the house and blew a gaping hole in its side—but there was nobody home! Evidently all had escaped by the canal in the bottom of the pond to the tunnel beneath the bank.

The men would not admit defeat, but set about to dig the beavers out of the bank. Darkness saw their task unfinished so they camped for the night at the entrance of the tunnel; they piled heavy stones at its mouth hoping to trap the animals within.

Next morning I watched them resume their work, feeling sympathy for the beavers, but not daring to interfere. Shortly after noon the quest ended quite unexpectedly. The diggers had discovered a hidden exit that was concealed among the willows, the beavers had followed the canal, which could not be drained, to their refuge tunnel in the bank; and when their enemies destroyed the tunnel, they had used the hidden exit, and had in all probability made good their retreat during the night.

As more people settled in the valleys, there was an inevitable overlapping of claims. The settlers claimed both the water and the land, and they had government deeds to back them up in their claims. But the beaver had prior rights, and gamely adhered to them. A feud arose that is still unsettled between the Old Settlers and the newcomers. In my rambles I continually came upon homesteaders striving to drain the valleys and raise grass for their cattle, while simultaneously the beavers were working to maintain high water. Many of them lost their lives for their cause, but rarely did they forsake a home site once established. In the same sections, where the homesteaders had used aspen for their fence posts, the beavers, no doubt mistaking them for trees, cut them down. Sometimes their pluck and persistence won them the admiration of their enemies. In most cases they won out.

One day, far up near the headwaters of the Cache la Podre River in Colorado, I came upon a rancher trying to drain a number of beaver ponds to secure water for irrigation; it was a very dry season and water was scarce. During the day he tore gaps in the dams, during the night the beavers repaired the breaks. When after opening the dams the rancher hurried down to his fields to regulate the flow of water, the beavers, even in the daytime, would swarm forth and plug up the holes.

Finally in desperation, the man set traps in the gaps he had opened in the dams. He caught a few beavers and decided that his troubles were over. But the survivors met the emergency. They floated material down from above and wedged it into the breaks, without going near the traps.

At this stage of the struggle an old prospector came down from the higher mountains, driving his burros ahead of him. Hearing of the rancher's predicament, he suggested his own panacea for all troubles, dynamite. Enthusiastically, the rancher accepted his proposal. Soon the dams were in ruins.

A mile below where the dams had been destroyed an irrigation ditch tapped the river and carried a full head to the green fields. I saw the rancher standing in the middle of the field, water flowing all about him. He looked upstream and chuckled, then leaned triumphantly on his shovel handle. For a long time, he leaned thus, lost in dreams of prosperity.

Suddenly he awoke and hurried along his supply ditch. Barely a trickle was coming down it. The beavers had dammed the intake.

I once worked for a rancher who had a homestead on the North Fork of the St. Vrain River, which heads south of Long's Peak. He had just finished clearing a patch of ground to raise "truck" on.

"We've got to get rid of some beaver," he told me the very first day. He shouldered his shovel and walked down to the dam that sprawled across the meadow for several hundred feet.

"I cut her loose," he informed me on his return. "She'll soon dry out so we can put in the crop."

Next morning, whistling happily, he started out for the meadow. His whistle died away as he caught sight of the water in the pond. It was as high as usual. The beavers had repaired the break.

Day after day he cut the dam, night after night, the beavers repaired it. He trapped five of them before they became "trap-wise." After that they either turned the traps over or covered them with mud. After trying a number of ruses to frighten them away, the man hung a lighted lantern in the break he had opened in the dam. The next morning his whistle piped, merrily, the break was still open. But his joy was short-lived, for on the following night the beavers constructed a new section of dam above the break, curving it like a horseshoe.

"Hope they appreciated my givin' 'em light to work by," he laughed; and gave up the contest.

Beavers seem to possess sagacity in varying degrees. The old animals are wise according to their years; the stupid and lazy die young. They adapt themselves quickly to changed conditions; they outwit their enemies by sheer cunning, never in physical combat; rarely do they defend themselves—and not once have I known one to take the offensive side of a fray. Watching them waddling along, one wonders how they accomplish their great engineering feats in so short a time. Of course, they can move more rapidly in water than on land, but I suspect its "everlasting teamwork" that accounts for their achievements. They are prolific and, unlike the bees, drones are unknown to them. Cooperative industry—there lies the secret.

I was absent from my cabin for more than a year; and upon my return at once visited the Old Settlers. Like any other thriving community, they had made several improvements—two new ponds and houses had been built. Tracks in the edge of a small new pond showed that my pioneer friends, Mr. and Mrs. Peg, had removed to a new home. Whether the increasing number of beavers in the larger pond got on the old folks' nerves, I do not know; but whatever the reason, they were living alone. I walked rapidly toward their home, instead of approaching slowly and giving them a chance to look me over. As I neared the edge of the road, one of them, I presume Pa Peg, smote the water a mighty whack with his tail. Both disappeared. I watched for their reappearance, for I knew that they were watching me from their concealment among the willows. I sang, whistled, called to them to come out—that I was their old friend returned. My persistence was at last rewarded. Shyly they came to the surface, watching me sharply the while, diving at my slightest movement, reappearing on the farther shore, cautious and canny as ever.

It was spring. Within a few weeks after my homecoming the Pegs would permit my near approach as they had done before I went away. Though they worked mostly at night, they did venture out in daytime. If they were working at separate tasks, the first to discover me would thump the ground or give the water a resounding whack.

One morning Daddy Peg was missing from the pond. Downstream I picked up his tracks and discovered that he was hastening away from home. As it was springtime, I was not concerned lest he was deserting his faithful wife. It was his habit to leave home when Mrs. Peg was "expecting." I knew he'd come waddling back in a few weeks to give the babies their daily plunge.

Sure enough, Mrs. Peg came forth with four midgets in fur; a happy, romping family that splashed about the pool for hours at a time. Like all their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much "perter" then other animal infants. They swam, and ate, and took the trail at once. If Mrs. Peg showed fear of anything, the youngsters took quick alarm, and forever afterward shunned the object. Of me, Mrs. Peg took little notice, merely giving me the right of way if I intruded on one of her trails, or stopping work to watch me curiously whenever I came near. The beaver babies accepted me as a friend, permitted me to sit or stand near them as they played.

One morning, as I approached the pool, I discovered the four youngsters in great agitation. They were not playing. They swam about restlessly, circled the pool, visited the dam, swam out to their house, dived inside it, only to reappear almost at once. I searched around the pond, and found their mother's fresh tracks leading toward the aspen grove. Near it she had been overtaken by a coyote.

In vain I tried to catch the motherless waifs, but they eluded me. I went home, made a rude sort of dip-net from an old sack, and returned to the pool.

During my absence a strange beaver mother with a brood of five babies had visited the pool where the orphans lived. She immediately adopted the wee bereft babies. Shortly the pool was merry with the rompings of the combined families.



CHAPTER NINE

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

Mountain climbing is the reverse of the general rule of life in that the ascent is easier than the descent, and much safer. Most climbers underestimate the time required to make a chosen trip, and, starting out with the day before them, ascend at their leisure, making frequent and unnecessarily long stops to rest, drinking in the beauty of the prospect from each rise attained, forgetting to allow themselves sufficient time for the even more difficult descent. Consequently the return trip is crowded on the edge of darkness, a dangerous condition on any trail any time, but especially hazardous when the climber is weary and, therefore, not alert. It is impossible for him to see the slight footholds or handholds on which he must put his trust, and weight.

One day, as a boy, I came to grief because I was so absorbed by the interesting things about me that I took no note of the passing of time or of the altitude to which I had climbed. From my camp at Bear Lake I had followed the old Flattop trail to the Divide, from which I could see a hundred miles or more in all directions; to the north the mountains of Wyoming peeped through purple haze; eastward, the foothills dropped away to the flat and endless prairies, with gleaming lakes everywhere. West and south, my own Rockies rose, tier on tier, to snowy heights. Gay and fragrant flowers beckoned my footsteps off the trail; friendly conies "squee-eked" at me from their rocky lookout posts; fat marmots stuffed themselves, making the most of their brief summer. A buck deer left off polishing his new horns on a scraggly timberline tree to look at me. Overhead an eagle swept round and round in endless circles.