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Title: The Spell of the Rockies
Author: Mills, Enos A.
Language: English
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By Enos A. Mills
THE SPELL OF THE ROCKIES. Illustrated.
WILD LIFE ON THE ROCKIES. Illustrated.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
The Spell of the Rockies
[Illustration: THE HOME OF THE WHIRLWIND (p. 78)]
The Spell
of the Rockies
By
Enos A. Mills
With Illustrations from Photographs
by the Author
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY ENOS A. MILLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published November 1911_
To
B. W.
Preface
Although I have been alone by a camp-fire in every State and Territory
in the Union, with the exception of Rhode Island, the matter in this
book is drawn almost entirely from my experiences in the Rocky
Mountain region.
Some of the chapters have already appeared in magazines, and I am
indebted to The Curtis Publishing Company, Doubleday, Page and
Company, "Suburban Life," and "Recreation" for allowing me to reprint
the papers which they have published. "Country Life in America"
published "Racing an Avalanche," "Alone with a Landslide," and "A
Rainy Day at the Stream's Source,"--the two last under the titles of
"Alone with a Crumbling Mountain" and "At the Stream's Source." The
"Saturday Evening Post" published "Little Conservationists,"
"Mountain-Top Weather," "The Forest Fire," "Insects in the Forest,"
"Doctor Woodpecker," and "The Fate of a Tree Seed." "Suburban Life"
published "Rob of the Rockies" and "Little Boy Grizzly"; and
"Recreation" "Harvest Time with Beavers."
E. A. M.
Contents
Racing an Avalanche 1
Little Conservationists 17
Harvest Time with Beavers 49
Mountain-Top Weather 69
Rob of the Rockies 91
Sierra Blanca 107
The Wealth of the Woods 121
The Forest Fire 137
Insects in the Forest 171
Dr. Woodpecker, Tree-Surgeon 191
Little Boy Grizzly 205
Alone with a Landslide 221
The Maker of Scenery and Soil 245
A Rainy Day at the Stream's Source 265
The Fate of a Tree Seed 289
In a Mountain Blizzard 307
A Midget in Fur 321
The Estes Park Region 335
Index 351
Illustrations
_The Home of the Whirlwind_ (page 78) _Frontispiece_
_Near the top of Long's Peak._
_A Snow-Slide Region_ 6
_Near Telluride, Colorado._
_Mt. Meeker_ 20
_A Beaver House in Winter_ 38
_Lily Lake, Estes Park._
_A Beaver Canal_ 56
_Length, 334 feet; average width, 26 inches; average
depth, 15 inches._
_Aspens cut by Beaver_ 64
_On slope of Mt. Meeker._
_Wind-blown Trees at Timber-Line_ 76
_Long's Peak._
_Sierra Blanca in Winter_ 110
_Spanish Moss_ 124
_Lake Charles, Louisiana._
_A Forest Fire on the Grand River_ 140
_Near Grand Lake, Colorado._
_A Yellow Pine, Forty-Seven Years after it had been killed by
Fire_ 154
_Estes Park._
_A Tree killed by Mistletoe and Beetles_ 184
_Estes Park._
_Woodpecker Holes in a Pine injured by Lightning_ 198
_Estes Park._
_Johnny and Jenny_ 210
_Near the Top of Mt. Coxcomb_ 228
_Court-House Rock_ 242
_The Hallett Glacier_ 250
_A Crevasse_ 260
_Hallett Glacier._
_Among the Clouds_ 272
_Continental Divide, near Long's Peak._
_Full Streams_ 286
_Near Telluride, Colorado._
_On Grand River, Middle Park, in Winter_ 310
_Snow and Shadow_ 318
_Long's Peak._
_The Home of the Frémont Squirrel_ 326
_On the Little Cimarron River._
_Long's Peak and Estes Park_ 338
Racing an Avalanche
Racing an Avalanche
I had gone into the San Juan Mountains during the first week in March
to learn something of the laws which govern snow slides, to get a
fuller idea of their power and destructiveness, and also with the hope
of seeing them in wild, magnificent action. Everywhere, except on
wind-swept points, the winter's snows lay deep. Conditions for slide
movement were so favorable it seemed probable that, during the next
few days at least, one would "run" or chute down every gulch that led
from the summit. I climbed on skees well to the top of the range. By
waiting on spurs and ridges I saw several thrilling exhibitions.
It was an exciting experience, but at the close of one great day the
clear weather that had prevailed came to an end. From the table-like
summit I watched hundreds of splendid clouds slowly advance, take
their places, mass, and form fluffy seas in valley and cañons just
below my level. They submerged the low places in the plateau, and
torn, silver-gray masses of mists surrounded crags and headlands. The
sunset promised to be wonderful, but suddenly the mists came surging
past my feet and threatened to shut out the view. Hurriedly climbing a
promontory, I watched from it a many-colored sunset change and fade
over mist-wreathed spires, and swelling, peak-torn seas. But the
cloud-masses were rising, and suddenly points and peaks began to
settle out of sight; then a dash of frosty mists, and my promontory
sank into the sea. The light vanished from the heights, and I was
caught in dense, frosty clouds and winter snows without a star.
I had left my skees at the foot of the promontory, and had climbed up
by fingers and toes over the rocks without great difficulty. But on
starting to return I could see only a few inches into the frosty,
sheep's-wool clouds, and quickly found that trying to get down would
be a perilous pastime. The side of the promontory stood over the steep
walls of the plateau, and, not caring to be tumbled overboard by a
slip, I concluded that sunrise from this point would probably be
worth while.
It was not bitter cold, and I was comfortably dressed; however, it was
necessary to do much dancing and arm-swinging to keep warm. Snow began
to fall just after the clouds closed in, and it fell rapidly without a
pause until near morning. Early in the evening I began a mental review
of a number of subjects, mingling with these, from time to time,
vigorous practice of gymnastics or calisthenics to help pass the night
and to aid in keeping warm. The first subject I thought through was
Arctic exploration; then I recalled all that my mind had retained of
countless stories of mountain-climbing experiences; the contents of
Tyndall's "Hours of Exercise in the Alps" was most clearly recalled. I
was enjoying the poetry of Burns, when broken clouds and a glowing
eastern sky claimed all attention until it was light enough to get off
the promontory.
Planning to go down the west side, I crossed the table-like top,
found, after many trials, a break in the enormous snow-cornice, and
started down the steep slope. It was a dangerous descent, for the rock
was steep and smooth as a wall, and was overladen with snow which
might slip at any moment. I descended slowly and with great caution,
so as not to start the snow, as well as to guard against slipping and
losing control of myself. It was like descending a mile of steep,
snow-covered barn roof,--nothing to lay hold of and omnipresent
opportunity for slipping. A short distance below the summit the clouds
again were around me and I could see only a short distance. I went
sideways, with my long skees, which I had now regained, at right
angles to the slope; slowly, a few inches at a time, I eased myself
down, planting one skee firmly before I moved the other.
[Illustration: A SNOW-SLIDE REGION Near Telluride, Colorado]
At last I reached a point where the wall was sufficiently tilted to be
called a slope, though it was still too steep for safe coasting. The
clouds lifted and were floating away, while the sun made the mountains
of snow still whiter. I paused to look back and up, to where the wall
ended in the blue sky, and could not understand how I had come safely
down, even with the long tacks I had made, which showed clearly up
to the snow-corniced, mist-shrouded crags at the summit. I had come
down the side of a precipitous amphitheatre which rose a thousand feet
or more above me. A short distance down the mountain, the slopes of
this amphitheatre concentrated in a narrow gulch that extended two
miles or more. Altogether it was like being in an enormous frying-pan
lying face up. I was in the pan just above the place where the gulch
handle joined.
It was a bad place to get out of, and thousands of tons of snow
clinging to the steeps and sagging from corniced crests ready to slip,
plunge down, and sweep the very spot on which I stood, showed most
impressively that it was a perilous place to be in.
As I stood gazing upward and wondering how the snow ever could have
held while I came down this cloud over the crest in an inverted
cascade.
All this showed for a few seconds until the snowy spray began to
separate and vanish in the air. The snow-cloud settled downward and
began to roll forward. Then monsters of massed snow appeared beneath
the front of the cloud and plunged down the slopes. Wildly, grandly
they dragged the entire snow-cloud in their wake. At the same instant
the remainder of the snow-cornice was suddenly enveloped in another
explosive snow-cloud effect.
A general slide had started. I whirled to escape, pointed my skees
down the slope,--and went. In less than half a minute a tremendous
snow avalanche, one hundred or perhaps two hundred feet deep and five
or six hundred feet long, thundered over the spot where I had stood.
There was no chance to dodge, no time to climb out of the way. The
only hope of escape lay in outrunning the magnificent monster. It came
crashing and thundering after me as swift as a gale and more
all-sweeping and destructive than an earthquake tidal wave.
I made a desperate start. Friction almost ceases to be a factor with
skees on a snowy steep, and in less than a hundred yards I was going
like the wind. For the first quarter of a mile, to the upper end of
the gulch, was smooth coasting, and down this I shot, with the
avalanche, comet-tailed with snow-dust, in close pursuit. A race for
life was on.
The gulch down which I must go began with a rocky gorge and
continued downward, an enormous U-shaped depression between high
mountain-ridges. Here and there it expanded and then contracted, and
it was broken with granite crags and ribs. It was piled and bristled
with ten thousand fire-killed trees. To coast through all these
snow-clad obstructions at breakneck speed would be taking the maximum
number of life-and-death chances in the minimum amount of time. The
worst of it all was that I had never been through the place. And bad
enough, too, was the fact that a ridge thrust in from the left and
completely hid the beginning of the gulch.
As I shot across the lower point of the ridge, about to plunge
blindly into the gorge, I thought of the possibility of becoming
entangled in the hedge-like thickets of dwarfed, gnarled timber-line
trees. I also realized that I might dash against a cliff or plunge
into a deep cañon. Of course I might strike an open way, but certain
it was that I could not stop, nor see the beginning of the gorge, nor
tell what I should strike when I shot over the ridge.
It was a second of most intense concern as I cleared the ridge blindly
to go into what lay below and beyond. It was like leaping into the
dark, and with the leap turning on the all-revealing light. As I
cleared the ridge, there was just time to pull myself together for a
forty-odd-foot leap across one arm of the horseshoe-shaped end of the
gorge. In all my wild mountainside coasts on skees, never have I sped
as swiftly as when I made this mad flight. As I shot through the air,
I had a glimpse down into the pointed, snow-laden tops of a few tall
fir trees that were firmly rooted among the rocks in the bottom of the
gorge. Luckily I cleared the gorge and landed in a good place; but so
narrowly did I miss the corner of a cliff that my shadow collided with
it.
There was no time to bid farewell to fears when the slide started, nor
to entertain them while running away from it. Instinct put me to
flight; the situation set my wits working at their best, and, once
started, I could neither stop nor look back; and so thick and fast did
obstructions and dangers rise before me that only dimly and
incidentally did I think of the oncoming danger behind.
I came down on the farther side of the gorge, to glance forward like
an arrow. There was only an instant to shape my course and direct my
flight across the second arm of the gorge, over which I leaped from a
high place, sailing far above the snow-mantled trees and boulders in
the bottom. My senses were keenly alert, and I remember noticing the
shadows of the fir trees on the white snow and hearing while still in
the air the brave, cheery notes of a chickadee; then the snowslide on
my trail, less than an eighth of a mile behind, plunged into the gorge
with a thundering crash. I came back to the snow on the lower side,
and went skimming down the slope with the slide only a few seconds
behind.
Fortunately most of the fallen masses of trees were buried, though a
few broken limbs peeped through the snow to snag or trip me. How I
ever dodged my way through the thickly standing tree growths is one
feature of the experience that was too swift for recollection.
Numerous factors presented themselves which should have done much to
dispel mental procrastination and develop decision. There were scores
of progressive propositions to decide within a few seconds; should I
dodge that tree on the left side and duck under low limbs just beyond,
or dodge to the right and scrape that pike of rocks? These, with my
speed, required instant decision and action.
With almost uncontrollable rapidity I shot out into a small, nearly
level glacier meadow, and had a brief rest from swift decisions and
oncoming dangers. How relieved my weary brain felt, with nothing to
decide about dodging! As though starved for thought material, I
wondered if there were willows buried beneath the snow. Sharp pains
in my left hand compelled attention, and showed my left arm drawn
tightly against my breast, with fingers and thumb spread to the
fullest, and all their muscles tense.
The lower edge of the meadow was almost blockaded with a dense growth
of fire-killed trees. Fortunately the easy slope here had so checked
my speed that I was able to dodge safely through, but the heavy slide
swept across the meadow after me with undiminished speed, and came
crashing into the dead trees so close to me that broken limbs were
flung flying past as I shot down off a steep moraine less than one
hundred feet ahead.
All the way down I had hoped to find a side cañon into which I might
dodge. I was going too rapidly to enter the one I had seen. As I
coasted the moraine it flashed through my mind that I had once heard a
prospector say it was only a quarter of a mile from Aspen Gulch up to
the meadows. Aspen Gulch came in on the right, as the now slightly
widening track seemed to indicate.
At the bottom of the moraine I was forced between two trees that stood
close together, and a broken limb of one pierced my open coat just
beneath the left armhole, and slit the coat to the bottom. My momentum
and the resistance of the strong material gave me such a shock that I
was flung off my balance, and my left skee smashed against a tree. Two
feet of the heel was broken off and the remainder split. I managed to
avoid falling, but had to check my speed with my staff for fear of a
worse accident.
Battling breakers with a broken oar or racing with a broken skee are
struggles of short duration. The slide did not slow down, and so
closely did it crowd me that, through the crashing of trees as it
struck them down, I could hear the rocks and splintered timbers in its
mass grinding together and thudding against obstructions over which it
swept. These sounds, and flying, broken limbs cried to me "Faster!"
and as I started to descend another steep moraine, I threw away my
staff and "let go." I simply flashed down the slope, dodged and
rounded a cliff, turned awkwardly into Aspen Gulch, and tumbled heels
over head--into safety.
Then I picked myself up, to see the slide go by within twenty feet,
with great broken trees sticking out of its side, and a snow-cloud
dragging above.
Little Conservationists
Little Conservationists
Twenty-four years ago, while studying glaciation on the slope of
Long's Peak, I came upon a cluster of eight beaver houses. These
crude, conical mud huts were in a forest pond far up on the
mountainside. In this colony of our first engineers were so many
things of interest that the fascinating study of the dead Ice King's
ruins and records was indefinitely given up in order to observe
Citizen Beaver's works and ways.
The industrious beaver builds a permanent home, keeps it clean and in
repair, and beside it stores food supplies for winter. He takes
thought for the morrow. These and other commendable characteristics
give him a place of honor among the horde of homeless, hand-to-mouth
folk of the wild. His picturesque works add a charm to nature and are
helpful to mankind. His dams and ponds have saved vast areas of soil,
have checked many a flood, and helped to equalize stream-flow.
A pile of granite boulders on the edge of the pond stood several feet
above the water-level, and from the top of these the entire colony and
its operations could be seen. On these I spent days observing and
enjoying the autumnal activities of Beaverdom.
It was the busiest time of the year for these industrious folk.
General and extensive preparations were now being made for the long
winter amid the mountain snows. A harvest of scores of trees was being
gathered, and work on a new house was in progress, while the old
houses were receiving repairs. It was a serene autumn day when I came
into the picturesque village of these primitive people. The aspens
were golden, the willows rusty, the grass tanned, and the pines were
purring in the easy air.
[Illustration: MT. MEEKER]
The colony-site was in a small basin amid morainal débris at an
altitude of nine thousand feet above the sea-level. I at once
christened it the Moraine Colony. The scene was utterly wild. Peaks of
crags and snow rose steeply and high above; all around crowded a
dense evergreen forest of pine and spruce. A few small swamps reposed
in this forest, while here and there in it bristled several gigantic
windrows of boulders. A ragged belt of aspens surrounded the several
ponds and separated the pines and spruces from the fringe of
water-loving willows along the shores. There were three large ponds in
succession and below these a number of smaller ones. The dams that
formed the large ponds were willow-grown, earthy structures about four
feet in height, and all sagged down stream. The houses were grouped in
the middle pond, the largest one, the dam of which was more than three
hundred feet long. Three of these lake dwellings stood near the upper
margin, close to where the brook poured in. The other five were
clustered by the outlet, just below which a small willow-grown,
boulder-dotted island lay between the divided waters of the stream.
A number of beavers were busy gnawing down aspens, while others cut
the felled ones into sections, pushed and rolled the sections into
the water, and then floated them to the harvest piles, one of which
was being made beside each house. Some were quietly at work spreading
a coat of mud on the outside of each house. This would freeze and defy
the tooth and claw of the hungriest or the strongest predaceous enemy.
Four beavers were leisurely lengthening and repairing a dam. A few
worked singly, but most of them were in groups. All worked quietly and
with apparent deliberation, but all were in motion, so that it was a
busy scene. "To work like a beaver!" What a stirring exhibition of
beaver industry and forethought I viewed from my boulder-pile!
At times upward of forty of them were in sight. Though there was a
general coöperation, yet each one appeared to do his part without
orders or direction. Time and again a group of workers completed a
task and without pause silently moved off and began another.
Everything appeared to go on mechanically. It produced a strange
feeling to see so many workers doing so many kinds of work
effectively and automatically. Again and again I listened for the
superintendent's voice; constantly I watched to see the overseer move
among them; but I listened and watched in vain. Yet I feel that some
of the patriarchal fellows must have carried a general plan of the
work, and that during its progress orders and directions that I could
not comprehend were given from time to time.
The work was at its height a little before midday. Nowadays it is rare
for a beaver to work in daylight. Men and guns have prevented daylight
workers from leaving descendants. These not only worked but played by
day. One morning for more than an hour there was a general frolic, in
which the entire population appeared to take part. They raced, dived,
crowded in general mix-ups, whacked the water with their tails,
wrestled, and dived again. There were two or three play-centres, but
the play went on without intermission, and as their position
constantly changed, the merrymakers splashed water all over the main
pond before they calmed down and in silence returned to work. I gave
most attention to the harvesters, who felled the aspens and moved
them, bodily or in sections, by land and water to the harvest piles.
One tree on the shore of the pond which was felled into the water was
eight inches in diameter and fifteen feet high. Without having even a
limb cut off, it was floated to the nearest harvest pile. Another,
about the same size, which was procured some fifty feet from the
water, was cut into four sections and its branches removed; then a
single beaver would take a branch in his teeth, drag it to the water,
and swim with it to a harvest pile. But four beavers united to
transport the largest section to the water. They pushed with fore
paws, with breasts, and with hips. Plainly it was too heavy for them.
They paused. "Now they will go for help," I said to myself, "and I
shall find out who the boss is." But to my astonishment one of them
began to gnaw the piece in two, and two more began to clear a narrow
way to the water, while the fourth set himself to cutting down another
aspen. Good roads and open waterways are the rule, and perhaps the
necessary rule, of beaver colonies.
I was impatient to have a close view of a beaver cutting down a tree,
and at last one came prospecting near where I was hidden. After a
prolonged period of repose and possibly reflection he rose, gazed into
the treetop, as though to see if it were entangled, then put his fore
paws against the tree, spread his hind legs, sat back on his extended
tail, and took a bite from the trunk. Everything in his actions
suggested that his only intention was to devour the tree deliberately.
He did most of the cutting from one side. Occasionally he pulled out a
chip by leaning backward; sometimes he pried it out by tilting his
head to the horizontal, forcing his lower front teeth behind it, then
splitting it out by using his jaws as a lever. He was a trifle more
than an hour in felling a four-inch tree; just before it fell he
thudded the ground a few times with his tail and ran away.
I became deeply interested in this colony, which was situated within
two miles of my cabin, and its nearness enabled me to be a frequent
visitor and to follow closely its fortunes and misfortunes. About the
hut-filled pond I lingered when it was covered with winter's white,
when fringed with the gentian's blue, and while decked with the
pond-lily's yellow glory.
Ruin befell it before my first visit ended. One morning, while
watching from the boulder-pile, I noticed an occasional flake of ash
dropping into the pond. Soon smoke scented the air, then came the
awful and subdued roar of a forest fire. I fled, and from above the
timber-line watched the storm-cloud of black smoke sweep furiously
forward, bursting and closing to the terrible leaps of red and
tattered flames. Before noon several thousand acres of forest were
dead, all leaves and twigs were in ashes, all tree-trunks blistered
and blackened.
The Moraine Colony was closely embowered in a pitchy forest. For a
time the houses in the water must have been wrapped in flames of
smelter heat. Could these mud houses stand this? The beavers
themselves I knew would escape by sinking under the water. Next
morning I went through the hot, smoky area and found every house
cracked and crumbling; not one was inhabitable. Most serious of all
was the total loss of the uncut food supply, when harvesting for
winter had only begun.
Would these energetic people starve at home or would they try to find
refuge in some other colony? Would they endeavor to find a grove that
the fire had missed and there start anew? The intense heat had
consumed almost every fibrous thing above the surface. The piles of
garnered green aspen were charred to the water-line; all that remained
of willow thickets and aspen groves were thousands of blackened
pickets and points, acres of coarse charcoal stubble. It was a dreary,
starving outlook for my furred friends.
I left the scene to explore the entire burned area. After wandering
for hours amid ashes and charcoal, seeing here and there the seared
carcass of a deer or some other wild animal, I came upon a beaver
colony that had escaped the fire. It was in the midst of several acres
of swampy ground that was covered with fire-resisting willows and
aspens. The surrounding pine forest was not dense and the heat it
produced in burning did no damage to the scattered beaver houses.
From the top of a granite crag I surveyed the green scene of life and
the surrounding sweep of desolation. Here and there a sodden log
smouldered in the ashen distance and supported a tower of smoke in the
still air. A few miles to the east, among the scattered trees of a
rocky summit, the fire was burning itself out: to the west the sun was
sinking behind crags and snow; near-by, on a blackened limb, a
south-bound robin chattered volubly but hopelessly.
While I was listening, thinking, and watching, a mountain lion
appeared and leaped lightly upon a block of granite. He was on my
right, about one hundred feet away and about an equal distance from
the shore of the nearest pond. He was interested in the approach of
something. With a nervous switching of his tail he peered eagerly
forward over the crown of the ridge just before him, and then crouched
tensely and expectantly upon his rock.
A pine tree that had escaped the fire screened the place toward which
the lion looked and where something evidently was approaching. While I
was trying to discover what it could be, a coyote trotted into view.
Without catching sight of the near-by lion, he suddenly stopped and
fixed his gaze upon the point that so interested the crouching beast.
The mystery was solved when thirty or forty beavers came hurrying into
view. They had come from the ruined Moraine Colony.
I thought to myself that the coyote, stuffed as he must be with the
seared flesh of fire-roasted victims, would not attack them; but a
lion wants a fresh kill for every meal, and so I watched the movements
of the latter. He adjusted his feet a trifle and made ready to spring.
The beavers were getting close; but just as I was about to shout to
frighten him the coyote leaped among them and began killing.
In the excitement of getting off the crag I narrowly escaped breaking
my neck. Once on the ground I ran for the coyote, shouting wildly to
frighten him off; but he was so intent upon killing that a violent
kick in the ribs first made him aware of my presence. In anger and
excitement he leaped at me with ugly teeth as he fled. The lion had
disappeared, and by this time the beavers in the front ranks were
jumping into the pond, while the others were awkwardly speeding down
the slope. The coyote had killed three. If beavers have a language,
surely that night the refugees related to their hospitable neighbors
some thrilling experiences.
The next morning I returned to the Moraine Colony over the route
followed by the refugees. Leaving their fire-ruined homes, they had
followed the stream that issued from their ponds. In places the
channel was so clogged with fire wreckage that they had followed
alongside the water rather than in it, as is their wont. At one place
they had hurriedly taken refuge in the stream. Coyote tracks in the
scattered ashes explained this. But after going a short distance they
had climbed from the water and again traveled the ashy earth.
Beavers, like fish, commonly follow water routes, but in times of
emergency or in moments of audacity they will journey overland. To
have followed this stream down to its first tributary, then up this to
where the colony in which they found refuge was situated, would have
required four miles of travel. Overland it was less than a mile.
After following the stream for some distance, at just the right place
they turned off, left the stream, and dared the overland dangers. How
did they know the situation of the colony in the willows, or that it
had escaped fire, and how could they have known the shortest, best way
to it?
The morning after the arrival of the refugees, work was begun on two
new houses and a dam, which was about sixty feet in length and built
across a grassy open. Green cuttings of willow, aspen, and alder were
used in its construction. Not a single stone or a handful of mud was
used. When completed it appeared like a windrow of freshly raked
shrubs. It was almost straight, but sagged a trifle downstream. Though
the water filtered freely through, it flooded the flat above. As the
two new houses could not shelter all the refugees, it is probable that
some of them were sheltered in bank tunnels, while room for others may
have been found in the old houses.
That winter the colony was raided by some trappers; more than one
hundred pelts were secured, and the colony was left in ruins and
almost depopulated.
The Moraine Colony site was deserted for a long time. Eight years
after the fire I returned to examine it. The willow growth about the
ruins was almost as thrifty as when the fire came. A growth of aspen
taller than one's head clung to the old shore-lines, while a close
seedling growth of lodge-pole pine throve in the ashes of the old
forest. One low mound, merry with blooming columbine, was the only
house ruin to be seen.
The ponds were empty and every dam was broken. The stream, in rushing
unobstructed through the ruins, had eroded deeply. This erosion
revealed the records of ages, and showed that the old main dam had
been built on the top of an older dam and a sediment-filled pond. The
second dam was on top of an older one still. In the sediment of the
oldest--the bottom pond--I found a spear-head, two charred logs, and
the skull of a buffalo. Colonies of beaver, as well as those of men,
are often found upon sites that have a tragic history. Beavers, with
Omar, might say,--
"When you and I behind the veil are past,
Oh but the long long while the world shall last."
The next summer, 1893, the Moraine site was resettled. During the
first season the colonists put in their time repairing dams and were
content to live in holes. In autumn they gathered no harvest, and no
trace of them could be found after the snow; so it is likely that they
had returned to winter in the colony whence they had come. But early
in the next spring there were reinforced numbers of them at work
establishing a permanent settlement. Three dams were repaired, and in
the autumn many of the golden leaves that fell found lodgment in the
fresh plaster of two new houses.
Most beaver dams are built on the installment plan,--are the result of
growth. As the pond fills with sediment, and the water becomes
shallower, the dam is built higher and, where conditions require it,
longer; or, as is often the case, it may be raised and lengthened for
the purpose of raising or backing water to the trees that are next to
be harvested. The dams are made of sticks, small trees, sods, mud,
stones, coal, grass, roots,--that is, combinations of these. The same
may be said of the houses. For either house or dam the most convenient
material is likely to be used. But this is not always the case; for
the situation of the house, or what the dam may have to endure,
evidently is sometimes considered, and apparently that kind of
material is used that will best meet all the requirements.
Most beaver dams are so situated that they are destined earlier or
later to accumulate sediment, trash, and fallen leaves, and become
earthy; then they will, of course, be planted by Nature with grass,
shrubby willows, and even trees. I have seen many trees with birds'
nests in them standing on a beaver dam; yet the original dam had been
composed almost entirely of sticks or stones.
Why do beavers want or need ponds? They have very heavy bodies and
extremely short legs. On land they are slow and awkward and in the
greatest danger from their enemies,--wolves, lions, bears, and
wildcats; but they are excellent swimmers, and in water they easily
elude their enemies, and through it they conveniently bring their
harvests home. Water is necessary for their existence, and to have
this at all times compels the construction of dams and ponds.
In the new Moraine Colony one of the houses was torn to pieces by some
animal, probably a bear. This was before Thanksgiving. About midwinter
a prospector left his tunnel a few miles away, came to the colony, and
dynamited a house, and "got seven of them." Next year two houses were
built on the ruins of the two just fallen. That year's harvest-home
was broken by deadly attacks of enemies. In gathering the harvest the
beavers showed a preference for some aspens that were growing in a
moist place about one hundred feet from the water. Whether it was the
size of these or their peculiar flavor that determined their election
in preference to nearer ones, I could not determine. One day, while
several beavers were cutting here, they were surprised by a mountain
lion, which leaped upon and killed one of the harvesters. The next
day the lion surprised and killed another. Two or three days later a
coyote killed one on the same blood-stained spot, and then overtook
and killed two others as they fled for the water. I could not see
these deadly attacks from the boulder-pile, but in each case the sight
of flying beavers sent me rushing upon the scene, where I beheld the
cause of their desperate retreat. But despite dangers they persisted
until the last of these aspens was harvested. During the winter the
bark was eaten from these, and the next season their clean wood was
used in the walls of a new house.
One spring I several times visited a number of colonies while trying
to determine the number of young brought forth at a birth. Six furry
little fellows sunning themselves on top of their rude home were the
first discovery; this was the twelfth of May. By the close of the
month I had come in sight of many youngsters, and found the average
number to be five. One mother proudly exhibited eight, while another,
one who all winter had been harassed by trappers and who lived in a
burrow on the bank, could display but one. In the Moraine Colony the
three sets of youngsters numbered two, three, and five. Great times
these had as they were growing up. They played over the house, and
such fun they had nosing and pushing each other off a large boulder
into the water! A thousand merry ripples they sent to the shore as
they raced, wrestled, and dived in the pond, both in the sunshine and
in the shadows of the willows along the shore.
The beaver has a rich birthright, though born in a windowless hut of
mud. Close to the primitive place of his birth the wild folk of both
woods and water meet and often mingle; around it are the
ever-changing, never-ending scenes and silences of the water or the
shore. He grows up with the many-sided wild, playing amid the enameled
flowers, the great boulders,--the Ice King's marbles,--and the fallen
logs in the edge of the mysterious forest; learning to swim and slide;
listening to the strong, harmonious stir of wind and water; living
with the stars in the sky and the stars in the pond; beginning
serious life when brilliant clouds of color enrich the hills; helping
to harvest the trees that wear the robes of gold, while the birds go
by for the southland in the reflective autumn days. If Mother Nature
should ever call me to live upon another planet I could wish that I
might be born a beaver, to inhabit a house in the water.
The autumn of the year when I watched the young beavers I had the
pleasure of seeing some immigrants pass me _en route_ for a new home
in the Moraine Colony. Of course they may have been only visitors, or
have come temporarily to assist in the harvesting; but I like to think
of them as immigrants, and a number of things testified that
immigrants they were. One evening I had long been lying on a boulder
by the stream below the colony, waiting for a gift from the gods. It
came. Out of the water within ten feet of me scrambled the most
patriarchal, as well as the largest, beaver that I have ever seen. I
wanted to take off my hat to him, I wanted to ask him to tell me the
story of his life, but from long habit I simply lay still and watched
and thought in silence. He was making a portage round a cascade. As
he scrambled up over the rocks, I noticed that he had but two fingers
on his right hand. He was followed, in single file, by four others;
one of these was minus a finger on the left hand. The next morning I
read that five immigrants had arrived in the Moraine Colony. They had
registered their footprints in the muddy margin of the lower pond. Had
an agent been sent to invite these colonists, or had they come out of
their own adventurous spirit? The day following their arrival I
trailed them backward in the hope of learning whence they came and why
they had moved. They had traveled in the water most of the time; but
in places they had come out on the bank to go round a waterfall or to
avoid an obstruction. Here and there I saw their tracks in the mud and
traced them to a beaver settlement in which the houses and dams had
been recently wrecked. A near-by rancher told me that he had been
"making it hot" for all beavers in his meadow. During the next two
years I occasionally saw this patriarchal beaver or his tracks
thereabout.
[Illustration: A BEAVER HOUSE IN WINTER]
It is the custom among old male beavers to idle away two or three
months of each summer in exploring the neighboring brooks and streams.
But they never fail to return in time for autumn activities. It thus
becomes plain how, when an old colony needs to move, some one in it
knows where to go and the route to follow.
I had enjoyed the ways of "our first engineers" for several years
before it dawned upon me that their works might be useful to man and
that the beaver might justly be called the first conservationist. One
dry winter the stream through the Moraine Colony ran low and froze to
the bottom, and the only trout in it that survived were those in the
deep holes of these beaver ponds. Another demonstration of their
usefulness came one gray day. The easy rain of two days ended in a
heavy downpour and a deluge of water on the mountainside above. This
mountain-slope was still barren from the forest fire. It had but
little to absorb or delay the excess of water, which was speedily shed
into the stream below. Flooding down the stream's channel came a
roaring avalanche or waterslide, with a rubbish-filled front that was
five or six feet high. This expanded as it rolled into the pond and
swept far out on the sides, while the front, greatly lowered, rushed
over the dam. Much of this water was caught and temporarily detained
in the ponds, and by the time it poured over the last dam its volume
was greatly reduced and its speed checked. The ponds had broken the
rush and prevented a flood.
Every beaver pond is a settling-basin that takes sediment and soil
from the water that passes through it. If this soil were carried down
it would not only be lost, but it would clog the deep waterway, the
river channel. Deposited in the pond, it will in time become
productive. During past ages the millions of beaver dams in the United
States have spread soil over thousands of square miles and rendered
them productive. Beavers prepared the way for numerous forests and
meadows, for countless orchards and peaceful, productive valleys.
The Moraine colonists gathered an unusually large harvest during the
autumn of 1909. Seven hundred and thirty-two sapling aspens and
several hundred willows were massed in the main pond by the largest
house. This pile, which was mostly below the water-line, was three
feet deep and one hundred and twenty-four feet in circumference. Would
a new house be built this fall? This unusually large harvest plainly
told that either children or immigrants had increased the population
of the colony. Of course, a hard winter may also have been expected.
No; they were not to build a new house, but the old house by the
harvest pile was to be enlarged. One day, just as the evening shadow
of Long's Peak had covered the pond, I peeped over a log on top of the
dam to watch the work. The house was only forty feet distant. Not a
ripple stirred among the inverted peaks and pines in the clear,
shadow-enameled pond. A lone beaver rose quietly in the scene from the
water near the house. Swimming noiselessly, he made a circuit of the
pond. Then for a time, and without any apparent purpose, he swam back
and forth over a short, straight course; he moved leisurely, and
occasionally made a shallow, quiet dive. He did not appear to be
watching anything in particular or to have anything special on his
mind. Yet his eyes may have been scouting for enemies and his mind may
have been full of house plans. Finally he dived deeply, and the next I
saw of him he was climbing up the side of the house addition with a
pawful of mud.
By this time a number of beavers were swimming in the pond after the
manner of the first one. Presently all began to work. The addition
already stood more than two feet above the water-line. The top of this
was crescent-shaped and was about seven feet long and half as wide. It
was made mostly of mud, which was plentifully reinforced with willow
cuttings and aspen sticks. For a time all the workers busied
themselves in carrying mud and roots from the bottom of the pond and
placing these on the slowly rising addition. Eleven were working at
one time. By and by three swam ashore, each in a different direction
and each a few seconds apart. After a minute or two they returned from
the shore, each carrying or trailing a long willow. These were
dragged to the top of the addition, laid down, and trampled in the
mud. Meantime the mud-carriers kept steadily at their work; again
willows were brought, but this time four beavers went, and, as before,
each was independent of the others. I did not see how this work could
go on without some one bossing the thing, but I failed to detect any
beaver acting as overseer. While there was general coöperation, each
acted independently most of the time and sometimes was apparently
oblivious of the others. These beavers simply worked,--slowly,
silently, and steadily; and they were still working away methodically
and with dignified deliberation when darkness hid them.
Most beaver houses are conical and round of outline. This house
originally was slightly elliptical and measured forty-one feet in
circumference. After enlargement it was almost a flattened ellipse and
measured sixty-three feet in circumference. Generally I have found
that small beaver houses are round and large ones elliptical.
One of the last large interesting works of the Moraine Colony was the
making of a new pond. This was made alongside the main pond and about
fifty feet distant from it. A low ridge separated the two. As it was
nearly one hundred feet from the stream, a ditch or canal was dug from
the stream, below the main pond, to fill it. The new pond was made for
the purpose of reaching with a waterway an aspen grove on its farther
shore.
The making of the dam showed more forethought than the getting of the
water into the pond. With the exception of aspen, no dam-making
material such as beavers commonly use was to be found. The population
of the colony was now large, while aspen, the chief food-supply, was
becoming scarce. Would the beavers see far enough ahead to realize
this? Evidently they did; at any rate not a single precious aspen was
used in making the dam. Close to the dam-site was a supply of young
lodge-pole pines; but it is against the tradition of the beaver to cut
green pines or spruces. Two of these lodge-poles were cut, but
evidently these pitchy, smelly things were not to the beavers' taste
and no more of them were used.
Not far away were scores of fire-killed trees, both standing and
fallen. "Surely," I said to myself, when two dead chunks had been
dragged into place, "they are not going to use this dead timber?" A
beaver avoids gnawing dead wood; it is slow work, and besides is very
hard on the teeth. Most of these dead trees were inconveniently large,
and were fire-hardened and full of sand-filled weather-cracks; but
contrary to all my years of observation, they, after long, hard labor,
built an excellent dam from this material.
* * * * *
I have determined to do all I can to perpetuate the beaver, and I wish
I could interest every man, woman, boy, and girl in the land to help
in this. Beaver works are so picturesque and so useful to man that I
trust this persistent practicer of conservation will not perish from
the hills and mountains of our land. His growing scarcity is awakening
some interest in him, and I hope and half believe that before many
years every brook that is born on a great watershed will, as it goes
swiftly, merrily singing down the slopes toward the sea, pass through
and be steadied in a poetic pond that is made and will be maintained
by our patient, persistent, faithful friend the beaver.
Harvest Time with Beavers
Harvest Time with Beavers
One autumn I watched a beaver colony and observed the customs of its
primitive inhabitants as they gathered their harvest for winter. It
was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most attractive one of the sixteen
beaver municipalities on the big moraine on the slope of Long's Peak.
The first evening I concealed myself close to the beaver house by the
edge of the pond. Just at sunset a large, aged beaver of striking,
patriarchal appearance, rose in the water by the house and swam
slowly, silently round the pond. He kept close to the shore and
appeared to be scouting to see if an enemy lurked near. On completing
the circuit of the pond, he climbed upon the end of a log that was
thrust a few feet out into the water. Presently several other beaver
appeared in the water close to the house. A few of these at once left
the pond and nosed quietly about on the shore. The others swam about
for some minutes and then joined their comrades on land, where all
rested for a time.
Meanwhile the aged beaver had lifted a small aspen limb out of the
water and was squatted on the log, leisurely eating bark. Before many
minutes elapsed the other beaver became restless and finally started
up the slope in a runway. They traveled slowly in single file and one
by one vanished amid the tall sedge. The old beaver slipped
noiselessly into the water, and a series of low waves pointed toward
the house. It was dark as I stole away in silence for the night, and
Mars was gently throbbing in the black water.
This was an old beaver settlement, and the numerous harvests gathered
by its inhabitants had long since exhausted the near-by growths of
aspen, the bark of which is the favorite food of North American
beaver, though the bark of willow, cottonwood, alder, and birch is
also eaten. An examination of the aspen supply, together with the
lines of transportation,--the runways, canals, and ponds,--indicated
that this year's harvest would have to be brought a long distance. The
place it would come from was an aspen grove far up the slope, about a
quarter of a mile distant from the main house, and perhaps a hundred
and twenty feet above it. In this grove I cut three notches in the
trunks of several trees to enable me to identify them whether in the
garnered pile by a house or along the line of transportation to it.
The grounds of this colony occupied several acres on a terraced,
moderately steep slope of a mountain moraine. Along one side rushed a
swift stream on which the colonists maintained three but little used
ponds. On the opposite side were the slope and summit of the moraine.
There was a large pond at the bottom, and one or two small ponds, or
water-filled basins, dotted each of the five terraces which rose
above. The entire grounds were perforated with subterranean
passageways or tunnels.
Beaver commonly fill their ponds by damming a brook or a river. But
this colony obtained most of its water-supply from springs poured
forth abundantly on the uppermost terrace, where the water was led
into one pond and a number of basins. Overflowing from these, it
either made a merry, tiny cascade or went to lubricate a slide on the
short slopes which led to the ponds on the terrace below. The waters
from all terraces were gathered into a large pond at the bottom. This
pond measured six hundred feet in circumference. The crooked and
almost encircling grass-grown dam was six feet high, and four hundred
feet long. In its upper edge stood the main house, which was eighty
feet high and forty feet in circumference. There was also another
house on one of the terraces.
After notching the aspens I spent some time exploring the colony
grounds and did not return to the marked trees until forty-eight hours
had elapsed. Harvest had begun, and one of the largest notched trees
had been felled and removed. Its gnawed stump was six inches in
diameter and stood fifteen inches high. The limbs had been trimmed
off, and a number of these lay scattered about the stump. The trunk,
which must have been about eighteen feet long, had disappeared, cut
into lengths of from three to six feet, probably, and started toward
the harvest pile. Wondering for which house these logs were intended,
I followed, hoping to trace and trail them to the house, or find them
_en route_. From the spot where they were cut, they had evidently been
rolled down a steep, grassy seventy-foot slope, at the bottom of this
dragged an equal distance over a level stretch among some lodge-pole
pines, and then pushed or dragged along a narrow runway that had been
cut through a rank growth of willows. Once through the willows, they
were pushed into the uppermost pond. They were taken across this,
forced over the dam on the opposite side, and shot down a slide into
the pond which contained the smaller house. Only forty-eight hours
before, the little logs which I was following were in a tree, and now
I expected to find them by this house. It was good work to have got
them here so quickly, I thought. But no logs could be found by the
house or in the pond! The folks at this place had not yet laid up
anything for winter. The logs must have gone farther.
On the opposite side of this pond I found where the logs had been
dragged across the broad dam and then heaved into a long, wet slide
which landed them in a small, shallow harbor in the grass. From this
point a canal about eighty feet long ran around the brow of the
terrace and ended at the top of a long slide which reached to the big
pond. This canal was new and probably had been dug especially for this
harvest. For sixty feet of its length it was quite regular in form and
had an average width of thirty inches and a depth of fourteen. The mud
dug in making it was piled evenly along the lower side. Altogether it
looked more like the work of a careful man with a shovel than of
beaver without tools. Seepage and overflow water from the ponds above
filled and flowed slowly through it and out at the farther end, where
it swept down the long slide into the big pond. Through this canal the
logs had been taken one by one. At the farther end I found the
butt-end log. It probably had been too heavy to heave out of the
canal, but tracks in the mud indicated that there was a hard tussle
before it was abandoned.
[Illustration: A BEAVER CANAL
Length 334 feet, average depth 15 inches, average width 26 inches]
The pile of winter supplies was started. Close to the big house a
few aspen leaves fluttered on twigs in the water; evidently these
twigs were attached to limbs or larger pieces of aspen that were piled
beneath the surface. Could it be that the aspen which I had marked on
the mountainside a quarter of a mile distant so short a time before,
and which I had followed over slope and slide, canal and basin, was
now piled on the bottom of this pond? I waded out into the water,
prodded about with a pole, and found several smaller logs. Dragging
one of these to the surface, I found there were three notches on it.
Evidently these heavy green tree cuttings had been sunk to the bottom
simply by the piling of other similar cuttings upon them. With this
heavy material in the still water a slight contact with the bottom
would prevent the drifting of accumulating cuttings until a heavy pile
could be formed. However, in deep or swift water I have noticed that
an anchorage for the first few pieces was secured by placing these
upon the lower slope of the house or against the dam.
Scores of aspens were felled in the grove where the notched ones were.
They were trimmed, cut into sections, and limbs, logs, and all taken
over the route of the one I had followed, and at last placed in a pile
beside the big house. This harvest gathering went on for a month. All
about was busy, earnest preparation for winter. The squirrels from the
tree-tops kept a rattling rain of cones on the leaf-strewn forest
floor, the cheery chipmunk foraged and frolicked among the withered
leaves and plants, while aspens with leaves of gold fell before the
ivory sickles of the beaver. Splendid glimpses, grand views, I had of
this strange harvest-home. How busy the beavers were! They were busy
in the grove on the steep mountainside; they tugged logs along the
runways; they hurried them across the water-basins, wrestled with them
in canals, and merrily piled them by the rude house in the water. And
I watched them through the changing hours; I saw their shadowy
activity in the starry, silent night; I saw them hopefully leave home
for the harvest groves in the serene twilight, and I watched them
working busily in the light of the noonday sun.
Most of the aspens were cut off between thirteen and fifteen inches
above the ground. A few stumps were less than five inches high, while
a number were four feet high. These high cuttings were probably made
from reclining trunks of lodged aspens which were afterward removed.
The average diameter of the aspens cut was four and one half inches at
the top of the stump. Numerous seedlings of an inch diameter were cut,
and the largest tree felled for this harvest measured fourteen inches
across the stump. This had been laid low only a few hours before I
found it, and a bushel of white chips and cuttings encircled the
lifeless stump like a wreath. In falling, the top had become entangled
in an alder thicket and lodged six feet from the ground. It remained
in this position for several days and was apparently abandoned; but
the last time I went to see it the alders which upheld it were being
cut away. Although the alders were thick upon the ground, only those
which had upheld the aspen had been cut. It may be that the beaver
which felled them looked and thought before they went ahead with the
cutting.
Why had this and several other large aspens been left uncut in a place
where all were convenient for harvest? All other neighboring aspens
were cut years ago. One explanation is that the beaver realized that
the tops of the aspens were entangled and interlocked in the limbs of
crowding spruces and would not fall if cut off at the bottom. This and
one other were the only large ones that were felled, and the tops of
these had been recently released by the overturning of some spruces
and the breaking of several branches on others. Other scattered large
aspens were left uncut, but all of these were clasped in the arms of
near-by spruces.
It was the habit of these colonists to transfer a tree to the harvest
pile promptly after cutting it down. But one morning I found logs on
slides and in canals, and unfinished work in the grove, as though
everything had been suddenly dropped in the night when work was at its
height. Coyotes had howled freely during the night, but this was not
uncommon. In going over the grounds I found the explanation of this
untidy work in a bear track and numerous wolf tracks, freshly moulded
in the muddy places.
After the bulk of the harvest was gathered, I went one day to the
opposite side of the moraine and briefly observed the methods of the
Island beaver colony. The ways of the two colonies were in some things
very different. In the Spruce Tree Colony the custom was to move the
felled aspen promptly to the harvest pile. In the Island Colony the
custom was to cut down most of the harvest before transporting any of
it to the pile beside the house. Of the one hundred and sixty-two
trees that had been felled for this harvest, one hundred and
twenty-seven were still lying where they fell. However, the work of
transporting was getting under way; a few logs were in the pile beside
the house, and numerous others were scattered along the canals,
runways, and slides between the house and the harvest grove.
There was more wasted labor, too, in the Island Colony. This was
noticeable in the attempts that had been made to fell limb-entangled
trees that could not fall. One five-inch aspen had three times been
cut off at the bottom. The third cut was more than three feet from the
ground, and was made by a beaver working from the top of a fallen log.
Still this high-cut aspen refused to come down and there it hung like
a collapsed balloon entangled in tree-tops.
Before the white man came it is probable that beaver did most of their
work in the day-time. But at present, except in the most remote
localities, day work is perilous. Prowling hunters have compelled most
beaver to work at night. The Spruce Tree Colony was an isolated one,
and occasionally its members worked and even played in the sunshine.
Each day I secluded myself, kept still, and waited; and on a few
occasions watched them as they worked in the light.
One windy day, just as I was unroping myself from the shaking limb of
a spruce, four beaver were plodding along in single file beneath. They
had come out of a hole between the roots of the spruce. At an aspen
growth about fifty feet distant they separated. Though they had been
closely assembled, each appeared utterly oblivious of the presence of
the others. One squatted on the ground by an aspen, took a bite of
bark out of it and ate leisurely. By and by he rose, clasped the aspen
with fore paws and began to bite chips from it systematically. He was
deliberately cutting it down. The most aged beaver waddled near an
aspen, gazed into its top for a few seconds, then moved away about ten
feet and started to fell a five-inch aspen. The one rejected was
entangled at the top. Presently the third beaver selected a tree, and
after some trouble to get comfortably seated, or squatted, also began
cutting. The fourth beaver disappeared and I did not see him again.
While I was looking for this one the huge, aged beaver whose venerable
appearance had impressed me the first evening appeared on the scene.
He came out of a hole beneath some spruces about a hundred feet
distant. He looked neither to right nor to left, nor up nor down, as
he ambled toward the aspen growth. When about halfway there he
wheeled suddenly and took an uneasy survey of the open he had
traversed, as though he had heard an enemy behind. Then with
apparently stolid indifference he went on leisurely, and for a time
paused among the cutters, which did nothing to indicate that they
realized his presence. He ate some bark from a green limb on the
ground, moved on, and went into the hole beneath me. He appeared so
large that I afterward measured the distance between the two aspens
where he paused. He was not less than three and a half feet long and
probably weighed fifty pounds. He had all his toes; there was no white
spot on his body; in fact, there was neither mark nor blemish by which
I could positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my month around
the colony I beheld the patriarch of the first evening in several
scenes of action.
[Illustration: ASPENS CUT BY BEAVER]
Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver began cutting he made a
brief pause; then he suddenly thudded the ground with his tail,
hurriedly took out a few more chips, and ran away, with the other two
beaver a little in advance, just as his four-inch aspen settled
over and then fell. All paused for a time close to the hole beneath
me, and then the old beaver returned to his work. The one that had
felled his tree followed closely and at once began on another aspen.
The other beaver, with his aspen half cut off, went into the hole and
did not again come out. By and by an old and a young beaver came out
of the hole. The young one at once began cutting limbs off the
recently felled aspen, while the other began work on the half-cut
tree; but he ignored the work already done, and finally severed the
trunk about four inches above the cut made by the other. Suddenly the
old beaver whacked the ground and ran, but at thirty feet distant he
paused and nervously thumped the ground with his tail, as his aspen
slowly settled and fell. Then he went into the hole beneath me.
This year's harvest was so much larger than usual that it may be the
population of this colony had been increased by the arrival of
emigrants from a persecuted colony down in the valley. The total
harvest numbered four hundred and forty-three trees. These made a
harvest pile four feet high and ninety feet in circumference. A thick
covering of willows was placed on top of the harvest pile,--I cannot
tell for what reason unless it was to sink all the aspen below reach
of the ice. This bulk of stores together with numerous roots of willow
and water plants, which in the water are eaten from the bottom of the
pond, would support a numerous beaver population through the days of
ice and snow.
On the last tour through the colony everything was ready for the long
and cold winter. Dams were in repair and ponds were brimming over with
water, the fresh coats of mud on the houses were freezing to defy
enemies, and a bountiful harvest was home. Harvest-gathering is full
of hope and romance. What a joy it must be to every man or animal who
has a hand in it! What a satisfaction, too, for all dependent upon a
harvest, to know that there is abundance stored for all the frosty
days!
The people of this wild, strange, picturesque colony had planned and
prepared well. I wished them a winter unvisited by cruel fate or foe,
and trusted that when June came again the fat and furry young beaver
would play with the aged one amid the tiger lilies in the shadows of
the big spruce trees.
Mountain-Top Weather
Mountain-Top Weather
The narrow Alpine zone of peaks and snow that forms the crest of the
Rocky Mountains has its own individual elemental moods, its
characteristic winds, its electrical and other peculiarities, and a
climate of its own. Commonly its days are serene and sunny, but from
time to time it has hail and snow and showers of wind-blown rain, cold
as ice-water. It is subject to violent changes from clear, calm air to
blizzard.
I have enjoyed these strange, silent heights in every season of the
year. In climbing scores of these peaks, in crossing the passes,
often on snowshoes, and in camping here and there on the skyline,
I have encountered these climatic changes and had numerous
strange experiences. From these experiences I realize that the
transcontinental aviator, with this realm of peak and sky, will have
some delightful as well as serious surprises. He will encounter stern
conditions. He may, like a storm-defying bird, be carried from his
course by treacherous currents and battle with breakers or struggle in
vain in the monstrous, invisible maelstroms that beset this ocean of
air. Of these skyline factors the more imposing are wind, cold,
clouds, rain, snow, and subtle, capricious electricity.
High winds are common across the summits of these mountains; and they
are most prevalent in winter. Those of summer, though less frequent
and much more short-lived, are a menace on account of their fury and
the suddenness with which they surprise and sweep the heights.
Early one summer, while exploring a wide alpine moorland above the
timber-line, I--and some others--had an experience with one of those
sudden stormbursts. The region was utterly wild, but up to it
straggling tourists occasionally rode for a view of the surrounding
mountain world. All alone, I was studying the ways of the wild
inhabitants of the heights. I had spent the calm, sunny morning in
watching a solitary bighorn that was feeding among some boulders. He
was aged, and he ate as though his teeth were poor and walked as
though afflicted with rheumatism. Suddenly this patriarch forgot his
age and fled precipitately, with almost the speed of frightened youth.
I leaped upon a boulder to watch him, but was instantly knocked
headlong by a wild blast of wind. In falling I caught sight of a straw
hat and a wrecked umbrella falling out of the sky. Rising amid the
pelting gale of flung hail, ice-water, and snow, I pushed my way in
the teeth of the storm, hoping for shelter in the lee of a rock-pile
about a hundred yards distant. A lady's disheveled hat blew by me, and
with the howl of the wind came, almost drowned, excited human
utterances. Nearing the rock-pile, I caught a vague view of a
merry-go-round of man and horse, then a glimpse of the last gyration,
in which an elderly Eastern gentleman parted company with a stampeded
bronco.
Five tourists had ridden up in the sunshine to enjoy the heights, and
the suddenness and fierceness of the storm had thrown them into a
panic and stampeded their horses. They were drenched and severely
chilled, and they were frightened. I made haste to tell them that the
storm would be brief. While I was still trying to reassure them, the
clouds commenced to dissolve and the sun came out. Presently all were
watching the majestic soaring of two eagles up in the blue, while I
went off to collect five scattered saddle-ponies that were contentedly
feeding far away on the moor.
Though the winter winds are of slower development, they are more
prolonged and are tempestuously powerful. Occasionally these winds
blow for days; and where they follow a fall of snow they blow and
whirl this about so wildly that the air is befogged for several
hundred feet above the earth. So violently and thickly is the powdered
snow flung about that a few minutes at a time is the longest that one
can see or breathe in it. These high winter winds come out of the west
in a deep, broad stratum that is far above most of the surface over
which they blow. Commonly a high wind strikes the western slope of the
Continental Divide a little below the altitude of eleven thousand
feet. This striking throws it into fierce confusion. It rolls
whirling up the steeps and frequently shoots far above the highest
peaks. Across the passes it sweeps, roars down the cañons on the
eastern slope, and rushes out across the plains. Though the western
slope below eleven thousand feet is a calm zone, the entire eastern
slope is being whipped and scourged by a flood of wind. Occasionally
the temperature of these winds is warm.
These swift, insistent winds, torn, intercepted, and deflected
by dashing against the broken skyline, produce currents,
counter-currents, sleepy eddies, violent vertical whirls, and milling
maelstroms that are tilted at every angle. In places there is a gale
blowing upward, and here and there the air pours heavily down in an
invisible but almost crushing air-fall.
One winter I placed an air-meter in Granite Pass, at twelve thousand
feet altitude on the slope of Long's Peak. During the first high wind
I fought my way up to read what the meter said. Both the meter and
myself found the wind exceeded the speed limit. Emerging above the
trees at timber-line, I had to face the unbroken fury of the gale as
it swept down the slope from the heights above. The region was barren
of snow. The wind dashed me with sandblasts and pelted me with gravel
volleys that were almost unbearable. My face and wrists were bruised,
and blood was drawn in many places where the gravel struck.
Seeking rest and shelter from this persistent punishment, I approached
a crag and when only a few yards away was struck and overturned by the
milling air-current around it. The air was so agitated around this
crag that its churnings followed me, like disturbed water, under and
behind the large rock-fragments, where shelter was hoped for but only
partly secured.
[Illustration: WIND-BLOWN TREES AT TIMBER-LINE]
On the last slope below the meter the wind simply played with me. I
was overthrown, tripped, knocked down, blown explosively off my feet
and dropped. Sometimes the wind dropped me heavily, but just as often
it eased me down. I made no attempt to stand erect; most of the time
this was impossible and at all times it was very dangerous. Now and
then the wind rolled me as I lay resting upon a smooth place.
Advancing was akin to swimming a whirlpool or to wrestling one's way
up a slope despite the ceaseless opposition of a vigorous, tireless
opponent.
At last I crawled and climbed up to the buzzing cups of the meter. So
swiftly were they rotating they formed a blurred circle, like a
fast-revolving life-preserver. The meter showed that the wind was
passing with a speed of from one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred
and seventy miles an hour. The meter blew up--or, rather, flew to
pieces--during a swifter spurt.
The wind so loudly ripped and roared round the top of the peak that I
determined to scale the summit and experience its wildest and most
eloquent efforts. All my strength and climbing knowledge were required
to prevent my being literally blown out of converging rock channels
through which the wind gushed; again and again I clung with all my
might to avoid being torn from the ledges. Fortunately not a bruise
was received, though many times this was narrowly avoided.
The top of the peak, an area of between three and four acres and
comparatively level, was in an easy eddy, almost a calm when compared
with the wind's activities below and near by. Apparently the
wind-current collided so forcefully with the western wall of the peak
that it was thrown far above the summit before recovering to continue
its way eastward; but against the resisting spurs and pinnacles a
little below summit-level the wind roared, boomed, and crashed in its
determined, passionate onsweep.
The better to hear this grand uproar, I advanced to the western edge
of the summit. Here my hat was torn off, but not quite grasped, by the
upshooting blast. It fell into the swirl above the summit and in large
circles floated upward at slow speed, rising directly above the top of
the peak. It rose and circled so slowly that I threw several stones at
it, trying to knock it down before it rose out of range. The diameter
of the circle through which it floated was about one hundred and fifty
feet; when it had risen five, or perhaps six, hundred feet above the
summit it suddenly tumbled over and over as though about to fall, but
instead of falling it sailed off toward the east as though a carrier
pigeon hurrying for a known and definite place in the horizon.
Some of the gulf-streams, hell-gates, whirlpools, rough channels, and
dangerous tides in the sea of air either are in fixed places or adjust
themselves to winds from a different quarter so definitely that their
location can be told by considering them in connection with the
direction of the wind. Thus the sea of air may be partly charted and
the position of some of its dangerous places, even in mountain-top
oceans, positively known.
However, there are dangerous mountain-top winds of one kind, or, more
properly, numerous local air-blasts, that are sometimes created within
these high winds, that do not appear to have any habits. It would be
easier to tell where the next thunderbolt would fall than where the
next one of these would explode. One of these might be called a
cannon wind. An old prospector, who had experienced countless high
winds among the crags, once stated that high, gusty winds on
mountain-slopes "sometimes shoot off a cannon." These explosive blasts
touch only a short, narrow space, but in this they are almost
irresistible.
Isolated clouds often soften and beautify the stern heights as they
silently float and drift among peaks and passes. Flocks of these sky
birds frequently float about together. On sunny days, in addition to
giving a charm to the peaks, their restless shadows never tire of
readjusting themselves and are ever trying to find a foundation or a
place of rest upon the tempestuous topography of the heights below.
Now and then a deep, dense cloud-stratum will cover the crests and
envelop the summit slopes for days. These vapory strata usually feel
but little wind and they vary in thickness from a few hundred to a few
thousand feet. Sometimes one of these rests so serenely that it
suggests an aggregation of clouds pushed off to one side because
temporarily the sky does not need them elsewhere for either decorative
or precipitative purposes. Now and then they do drop rain or snow, but
most of the time they appear to be in a procrastinating mood and
unable to decide whether to precipitate or to move on.
Commonly the upper surfaces of cloud-strata appear like a peaceful
silver-gray sea. They appear woolly and sometimes fluffy, level, and
often so vast that they sweep away beyond the horizon. Peaks and
ridges often pierce their interminable surface with romantic
continents and islands; along their romantic shores, above the surface
of the picturesque sea, the airship could sail in safe poetic flight,
though the foggy depths below were too dense for any traveler to
penetrate.
One spring the snow fell continuously around my cabin for three days.
Reports told that the storm was general over the Rocky Mountain
region. Later investigations showed that that cloud and storm were
spread over a quarter of a million square miles. Over this entire area
there was made a comparatively even deposit of thirty inches of snow.
All over the area, the bottom, or under surface, of the cloud was at
an altitude of approximately nine thousand feet. My cabin, with an
altitude of nine thousand, was immersed in cloud, though at times it
was one hundred feet or so below it. Fully satisfied of the widespread
and general nature of the storm, and convinced of the comparatively
level line of the bottom surface of the cloud, I determined to measure
its vertical depth and observe its slow movements by climbing above
its silver lining. This was the third day of the storm. On snowshoes
up the mountainside I went through this almost opaque sheep's-wool
cloud. It was not bitterly cold, but cloud and snow combined were
blinding, and only a ravine and instinct enabled me to make my way.
At an altitude of about twelve thousand feet the depth of the snow
became suddenly less, soon falling to only an inch or so. Within a few
rods of where it began to grow shallow I burst through the upper
surface of the cloud. Around me and above there was not a flake of
snow. Over the entire storm-area of a quarter of a million square
miles, all heights above twelve thousand had escaped both cloud and
snow. The cloud, which thus lay between the altitudes of nine
thousand and twelve thousand feet, was three thousand feet deep.
When I rose above the surface of this sea the sun was shining upon it.
It was a smooth sea; not a breath of wind ruffled it. The top of
Long's Peak rose bald and broken above. Climbing to the top of a
commanding ridge, I long watched this beautiful expanse of cloud and
could scarcely realize that it was steadily flinging multitudes of
snowflakes upon slopes and snows below. Though practically stationary,
this cloud expanse had some slight movements. These were somewhat akin
to those of a huge raft that is becalmed in a quiet harbor. Slowly,
easily, and almost imperceptibly the entire mass slid forward along
the mountains; it moved but a short distance, paused for some minutes,
then slowly slid back a trifle farther than it had advanced. After a
brief stop the entire mass, as though anchored in the centre, started
to swing in an easy, deliberate rotation; after a few degrees of
movement it paused, hesitated, then swung with slow, heavy movement
back. In addition to these shifting horizontal motions there was a
short vertical one. The entire mass slowly sank and settled two or
three hundred feet, then, with scarcely a pause, rose easily to the
level from which it sank. Only once did it rise above this level.
During all seasons of the year there are oft-recurring periods when
the mountains sit in sunshine and all the winds are still. In days of
this kind the transcontinental passengers in glass-bottomed airships
would have a bird's-eye view of sublime scenes. The purple forests,
the embowered, peaceful parks, the drifted snows, the streams that
fold and shine through the forests,--all these combine and cover
magnificently the billowed and broken distances, while ever floating
up from below are the soft, ebbing, and intermittent songs from white
water that leaps in glory.
Though the summits of the Rocky Mountains are always cool, it is only
in rare, brief times that they fall within the frigid spell of
Farthest North and become cruelly cold. The climate among these
mountain-tops is much milder than people far away imagine.
The electrical effects that enliven and sometimes illuminate
these summits are peculiar and often highly interesting.
Thunderbolts--lightning-strokes--are rare, far less frequent than in
most lowland districts. However, when lightning does strike the
heights, it appears to have many times the force that is displayed in
lowland strokes. My conclusions concerning the infrequency of
thunderbolts on these sky-piercing peaks are drawn chiefly from my own
experience. I have stood through storms upon more than a score of
Rocky Mountain summits that were upward of fourteen thousand feet
above the tides. Only one of these peaks was struck; this was Long's
Peak, which rises to the height of 14,256 feet above the sea.
Seventy storms I have experienced on the summit of this peak, and
during these it was struck but three times to my knowledge. One of
these strokes fell a thousand feet below the top; two struck the same
spot on the edge of the summit. The rock struck was granite, and the
effects of the strokes were similar; hundreds of pounds of shattered
rock fragments were flung horizontally afar. Out of scores of
experiences in rain-drenched passes I have record of but two
thunderbolts. Both of these were heavy. In all these instances the
thunderbolt descended at a time when the storm-cloud was a few hundred
feet above the place struck.
During the greater number of high-altitude storms the cloud is in
contact with the surface or but little removed from it. Never have I
known the lightning to strike when the clouds were close to the
surface or touching it. It is, however, common, during times of
low-dragging clouds, for the surface air to be heavily charged with
electrical fluid. This often is accompanied with strange effects.
Prominent among these is a low pulsating hum or an intermittent
_buz-z-z-z_, with now and then a sharp _zit-zit!_ Sometimes
accompanying, at other times only briefly breaking in, are subdued
camp-fire cracklings and roarings. Falling snowflakes, during these
times, are occasionally briefly luminous, like fireflies, the instant
they touch the earth. Hair-pulling is the commonest effect that people
experience in these sizzling electrical storms. There is a
straightening of the hairs and apparently a sharp pull upon each. As
John Muir has it, "You are sure to be lost in wonder and praise and
every hair of your head will stand up and hum and sing like an
enthusiastic congregation." Most people take very gravely their first
experience of this kind; especially when accompanied, as it often is,
with apparent near-by bee-buzzings and a purplish roll or halo around
the head. During these times a sudden finger movement will produce a
crackling snap or spark.
On rare occasions these interesting peculiarities become irritating
and sometimes serious to one. In "A Watcher on the Heights," in "Wild
Life on the Rockies," I have described a case of this kind. A few
people suffer from a muscular cramp or spasm, and occasionally the
muscles are so tensed that breathing becomes difficult and
heart-action disturbed. I have never known an electrical storm to be
fatal. Relief from the effects of such a storm may generally be had by
lying between big stones or beneath shelving rocks. On one occasion I
saw two ladies and four gentlemen lay dignity aside and obtain relief
by jamming into a place barely large enough for two. In my own case,
activity invariably intensified these effects; and the touching of
steel or iron often had the same results. For some years a family
resided upon the slope of Mt. Teller, at an altitude of twelve
thousand feet. Commonly during storms the stove and pipe were charged
with fluid so heavily that it was a case of hands off and let dinner
wait, and sometimes spoil, until the heavens shut off the current.
The sustaining buoyancy of the air to aerial things decreases with
altitude. In this "light" air some motor machinery is less efficient
than it is in the lowlands. It is probable that aviators will always
find the air around uplifted peaks much less serviceable than this
element upon the surface of the sea. But known and unknown dangers in
the air will be mastered, and ere long the dangers to those who take
flight through the air will be no greater than the dangers to those
who go down to the sea in ships. Flying across the crest of the
continent, above the crags and cañons, will be enchanting, and this
journey through the upper air may bring to many the first stirring
message from the rocks and templed hills.
Rob of the Rockies
Rob of the Rockies
Hurrying out of the flood-swept mountains in northern Colorado, in
May, 1905, I came upon a shaggy black and white dog, hopelessly
fastened in an entanglement of flood-moored barbed-wire fence that had
been caught in a clump of willows. He had been carried down with the
flood and was coated with earth. Masses of mud clung here and there to
his matted hair, and his handsome tail was encased as though in a
plaster cast. He was bruised, and the barbs had given him several
cuts. One ear was slit, and a blood-clot from a cut on his head almost
closed his left eye.
Had I not chanced upon him, he probably would have perished from
hunger and slow torture. Though he must have spent twelve hours in
this miserable barbed binding, he made no outcry. The barbs repeatedly
penetrated his skin, as I untangled and uncoiled the wires from around
his neck and between his legs. As he neither flinched nor howled, I
did him the injustice to suppose that he was almost dead. He trusted
me, and as I rolled him about, taking off that last thorny tangle, the
slit ear, bloody muzzle, and muddy head could not hide from me an
expression of gratitude in his intelligent face.
Returning from a camping-trip, and narrowly escaping drowning, too, I
was a dirty vagabond myself. When the last wire dropped from the
prisoner, he enthusiastically began to share his earth coating with
me. He leaped up and half clasped me in his fore legs, at the same
time wiping most of the mud off his head on one side of my face. Then
he darted between my legs, racing about and occasionally leaping or
flinging himself against me; each time he leaped, he twisted as he
came up so that he struck me with his back, head, or side, and thus
managed to transfer much of this fertile coat to me. He finally ended
by giving several barks, and then racing to the near-by river for a
drink and a bath. I, too, needed another cloudburst.
Just what kinds of dogs may have made his mixed ancestry could not be
told. Occasionally I had a glimpse of a collie in him, but for all
practical purposes he was a shepherd, and he frequently exhibited
traits for which the shepherd is celebrated. I could never find out
where he came from. It may be that the flood separated him from his
master's team; he may have been washed away from one of the flooded
ranches; or he may have been, as the stage-driver later told me, "a
tramp dog that has been seen in North Park, Cheyenne, and Greeley."
Home he may have left; master he may have lost; or tramp he may have
been; but he insisted on going with me, and after a kindly though
forceful protest, I gave in and told him he might follow.
The flood had swept all bridges away, and I was hurrying down the
Poudre, hoping to find a place to cross without being compelled to
swim. He followed, and kept close to my heels as I wound in and out
among flood débris and willow-clumps. But I did not find a place that
appeared shallow.
As it was necessary to cross, I patted my companion good-by, thinking
he would not care to go farther, and waded in. He squatted by the
water's edge and set up a howl. I stopped and explained to him that
this was very bad crossing for an injured dog, and that we would
better separate; but he only howled the more. He wanted to go with me,
but was afraid to try alone.
Returning to the bank, I found a rope in the flood wreckage, tied this
around his neck and waded in. He followed cheerfully, but swam with
effort. When about half way across, and in the water up to my
shoulders, I attached myself to a floating log lest the dog should
weaken and need help. Within sixty or seventy feet of the desired bank
we struck a stretch of swift, deep water, in which I was compelled to
let the animal go and swim for the shore. My companion was swept down
by the current, and the rope caught on a snag, entangling my legs so
that I had to cut it or drown. The current swept poor doggie against
some stranded wreckage in midstream. On this he climbed, while I
struggled on to the bank.
I called to him to come on, but he only howled. Again I called, patted
my knees, made friendly gesticulations, and did all I could think of
to encourage him. Finally, I told him that if he would only start I
would come part way and be ready to help him if he got into trouble.
But he would not start. Not desiring the task of returning for him
through the cold, strong current, and feeling in a hurry, I started
on. He howled and then cried so piteously that I went back and towed
him safely ashore.
That night some good people of the ranch house treated both of us
kindly, and in the morning they wanted to keep my companion. I was
willing that he should stay, for he would have a good place, and I was
bound for Denver, where I feared some accident would befall him. But
he growled and ran away when the man advanced to tie him. I started on
afoot and he joined me, insisting on following.
All the time he had been with me his only thought appeared to be to
stay with me. Game, dogs, horses, and people he saw and passed with
expressionless face, except two or three times when he imagined I was
in danger; then he was instantly alert for my defense. When the stage
overtook us, and stopped to let me in, he leaped in also, and squatted
by the driver with such an air of importance that I half expected to
see him take the lines and drive.
I lost him in my rush to make the train at the station. He could, of
course, have kept with me had he been without fear, or if he had
really so desired. As the train pulled out, I saw him start
down-street with an air of unconscious confidence that told of wide
experience. He was a tramp dog.
The next time I saw him was several months later, in Leadville, some
two hundred miles from where he left me. Where, in the mean time, he
may have rambled, what towns he may have visited, or what good days or
troubles he may have had, I have no means of knowing.
I came walking into Leadville with snowshoes under my arm, from two
weeks' snowshoeing and camping on the upper slopes of the Rockies. The
ends of broken tree limbs had torn numerous right-angled triangles in
my clothes, my soft hat was unduly slouchy, and fourteen nights'
intimate association with a camp-fire, along with only an infrequent,
indifferent contact with water, had made me a sight to behold,--for
dogs, anyway. On the outskirts, one snarly cur noticed me and barked;
in a few minutes at least a dozen dogs were closely following and
making me unwelcome to their haunts. They grew bold with time,
numbers, and closer inspection of me. They crowded unpleasantly close.
Realizing that if one of them became courageous enough to make a snap
at my legs, all might follow his example, I began to sidle out of the
middle of the street, intending to leap a fence close by and take
refuge in a house.
Before I could realize it, they were snapping right and left at me,
and howling as they collided with the tail of a snowshoe which I used
as a bayonet. We were close to the fence, I trying to find time to
turn and leap over; but I was too busy, and, without assistance, it is
probable that I should have been badly bitten.
Suddenly there was something like a football mix-up at my feet, then
followed a yelping of curs, with tucked tails dashing right and left
to avoid the ferocious tackles of a shaggy black and white dog. It was
Rob, who was delighted to see me, and whom I assured that he was most
welcome.
He had been seen about Leadville for two or three months, and several
persons had bits of information concerning him. All agreed that he had
held aloof from other dogs, and that he quietly ignored the friendly
greetings of all who made advances. He was not quarrelsome, but had
nearly killed a bulldog that had attacked a boy. On one occasion, a
braying burro so irritated him that he made a savage attack on the
long-eared beast, and sent him pell-mell down the street, braying in a
most excited manner.
The drivers of ore wagons reported that he occasionally followed them
to and from the mines up the mountainside. At one livery-stable he was
a frequent caller, and usually came in to have a drink; but no one
knew where he ate or slept. One day a little mittened girl had left
her sled, to play with him. He had responded in a most friendly
manner, and had raced, jumped, circled, and barked; at last he had
carried her slowly, proudly on his back.
I grew greatly interested in his biography, and wondered what could
have shaped his life so strangely. In what kind of a home was his
pretty puppyhood spent? Why was he so indifferent to dogs and people,
and had he left or lost a master?
Early next spring, after vainly trying to follow the trail of explorer
Pike, I struck out on a road that led me across the Wet Mountain
valley up into Sangre de Cristo Mountains. When well up into the
mountains, I saw a large dog walking slowly toward me, and at once
recognized him as Rob. Although clean and well-fed, he held his head
low and walked as though discouraged. The instant he scented me,
however, he leaped forward and greeted me with many a wag, bark, and
leap. He was one hundred miles from Leadville, and fully three hundred
miles from the flood scene on the Poudre. He faced about and followed
me up into the alpine heights, far beyond trail. We saw a number of
deer and many mountain sheep; these he barely noticed, but a bear
that we came upon he was most eager to fight.
The second night in the mountains, near Horne's Peak, we had an
exciting time with a mountain lion. Coyotes howled during the evening,
much to the dog's annoyance. It was a cold night, and, being without
bedding, I had moved the fire and lain down upon the warm earth. The
fire was at my feet, a crag rose above my head, and Rob was curled up
against my back. A shrill, uncanny cry of the lion roused me after
less than an hour's sleep. The dog was frightened and cuddled up close
to my face. The lion was on a low terrace in the crag, not many yards
distant. Having been much in the wilds alone and never having been
attacked by lions, I had no fear of them; but none had ever been so
audacious as this one. I began to think that perhaps it might be true
that a lion would leap upon a dog boldly at night, even though the dog
lay at the feet of his master. I kept close watch, threw stones at
suspicious shadows on the cliff terraces, and maintained a blazing
fire.
Long before sunrise we started down the mountain. Both Rob and I were
hungry, and although we startled birds and rabbits, Rob paid not the
least attention to them. At noon, on Madano Pass, I lay down for a
sleep and used Rob for a pillow. This he evidently enjoyed, for he lay
still with head stretched out and one eye open.
At mid-afternoon we met a sheep-herder who was carrying a club. I had
seen this man elsewhere, and, on recognizing me as he came up, he
waved his club by the way of expressing gladness. Rob misinterpreted
this demonstration, and dragged me almost to the frightened herder
before I could make him understand that this ragged, unwashed,
club-carrying fellow had no ill wishes for me.
I had in mind to climb Sierra Blanca the following day, and hoped to
spend the night in a ranch house on the northern slope of this great
peak. Toward sundown Rob and I climbed through a pole fence and
entered the ranch house-yard. Round a corner of the house came a boy
racing on a willow switch pony. On seeing us, he stopped, relaxed his
hold on the willow and started for Rob. How happily he ran, holding
out both eager hands! The dog sprang playfully backward, and began to
dodge and bark as the boy laughingly and repeatedly fell while trying
to catch him. Just as I entered the house, Rob was trying to climb to
the top of the fence after his new playmate.
That night Rob was agreeable with every one in the house, and even had
a romp with the cat. These people wanted to keep him, and offered
money and their best saddle-horse. I knew that with them he would have
kind treatment to the day of his death. I wanted him, too, but I knew
the weeks of mountain-exploring just before me would be too hard for
him. "Rob is a free dog," I said, "and is, of his own choice, simply
traveling with me as a companion. I cannot sell or give him away. I
like him, but, if he wants to stay, it will be a pleasure to me to
leave him."
The next morning every one was wondering whether Rob would go or stay.
The dog had made up his mind. He watched me prepare to leave with
keenest interest, but it was evident that he had planned to stay, and
his boy friend was very happy. As I passed through the yard, these two
were playing together; at the gate I called good-by, at which Rob
paused, gave a few happy barks, and then raced away, to try to follow
his mountain boy to the top of the old pole fence.
Sierra Blanca
Sierra Blanca
I was rambling alone on snowshoes, doing some winter observations in
the alpine heights of the Sangre de Cristo range. It was miles to the
nearest house. There was but little snow upon the mountains, and, for
winter, the day was warm. I was thirsty, and a spring which burst
forth among the fragments of petrified wood was more inviting than the
water-bottle in my pocket. The water was cool and clear, tasteless
and, to all appearances, pure.
As I rose from drinking, a deadly, all-gone feeling overcame me. After
a few seconds of this, a violent and prolonged nausea came on.
Evidently I had discovered a mineral spring! Perhaps it was arsenic,
perhaps some other poison. Poison of some kind it must have been, and
poisonous mineral springs are not unknown.
The sickness was very like seasickness, with a severe internal pain
and a mental stimulus added. After a few minutes I partly recovered
from these effects and set off sadly for the nearest house of which I
had heard. This was eight or ten miles distant and I hoped to find it
through the guidance of a crude map which a prospector had prepared
for me. I had not before explored this mountainous section.
The gulches and ridges which descended the slope at right angles to my
course gave me a rough sea which kept me stirred up. I advanced in
tottering installments; a slow, short advance would be made on wobbly
legs, then a heave-to, as pay for the advance gained.
Now and then there was smoothness, and I took an occasional look at
severe Sierra Blanca now looming big before me. It was mostly bare and
brown with a number of icy plates and ornaments shining in the sun.
At last in the evening light, from the top of a gigantic moraine, I
looked down upon the river and a log ranch-house nestling in a grassy
open bordered with clumps of spruces. An old lady and gentleman with
real sympathy in their faces stood in the doorway and for a moment
watched me, then hastened to help me from the pole fence to the door.
[Illustration: SIERRA BLANCA IN WINTER]
While giving them an incoherent account of my experience, I fell into
a stupor, and although I had evidently much to say concerning drinking
and apparently showed symptoms of too much drink, these old people did
not think me drunk. Waking from a fantastic dream I heard, "Does he
need any more sage tea?" The Western pioneers have faith in sage tea
and many ascribe to it all the life-saving, life-extending qualities
usually claimed for patent medicines. The following morning I was able
to walk about, while my slightly bloated, bronzed face did not appear
so badly. Altogether, I looked much better than I felt.
These good old people declared that they had not seen better days, but
that they were living the simple life from choice. They loved the
peace of this isolated mountain home and the companionship of the
grand old peak. In the Central States the wife had been a professor in
a State school, while the husband had been a State's Attorney.
The nearest neighbor was four miles downstream, and no one lived
farther up the mountain. The nearest railroad station was seventy
rough mountain-road miles away. It appeared best to hasten to Denver,
but two days in a jarring wagon to reach the railroad seemed more than
I could endure. I had not planned even to try for the top of
Colorado's highest peak in midwinter, but the way across Sierra Blanca
was shorter and probably much easier than the way around. Across the
range, directly over the shoulder of Sierra Blanca, lay historic Fort
Garland. It was only thirty miles away, and I determined to cross the
range and reach it in time for the midnight train. On hearing this
resolution the old people were at first astonished, but after a moment
they felt that they at last knew who I was.
"You must be the Snow Man! Surely no one but he would try to do this
in winter."
They, with scores of other upland-dwellers, had heard numerous and
wild accounts of my lone, unarmed camping-trips and winter adventures
in the mountain snows.
The misgivings of the old gentleman concerning the wisdom of my move
grew stronger when he perceived how weak I was, as we proceeded on
mule-back up the slope of Sierra Blanca. The ice blocked us at
timber-line, and in his parting handclasp I felt the hope and fear of
a father who sees his son go away into the world. He appeared to
realize that I was not only weak, but that at any moment I might
collapse. He knew the heights were steep and stern, and that in the
twenty-odd miles to Fort Garland there was neither house nor human
being to help me. Apparently he hoped that at the last moment I would
change my mind and turn back.
Up the northern side of the peak I made my way. Now and then it was
necessary to cut a few steps in the ice-plated steeps. The shoulder of
the peak across which I was to go was thirteen thousand feet above the
sea, and in making the last climb to this it was necessary to choose
between a precipitous ice-covered slope and an extremely steep
rock-slide,--more correctly a rock glacier. I picked my way up this
with the greatest caution. To start a rock avalanche would be easy,
for the loose rocks lay insecure on a slope of perilous steepness.
From time to time in resting I heard the entire mass settling,
snarling, and grinding its way with glacier slowness down the steep.
Just beneath the shoulder the tilting steepness of this rocky débris
showed all too well that the slightest provocation would set a
grinding whirlpool of a stone river madly flowing. The expected at
last happened when a boulder upon which I lightly leaped settled and
then gave way. The rocks before made haste to get out of the way,
while those behind began readjusting themselves. The liveliest of
foot-work kept me on top of the now settling, hesitating, and
inclined-to-roll boulder. There was nothing substantial upon which to
leap.
Slowly the heavy boulder settled forward with a roll, now right, now
left, with me on top trying to avoid being tumbled into the grinding
mill hopper below. At last, on the left, a sliding mass of crushed,
macadamized rock offered a possible means of escape. Not daring to
risk thrusting a leg into this uncertain mass, I allowed myself to
fall easily backwards until my body was almost horizontal, and then
face upwards I threw myself off the boulder with all my strength. The
rock gave a great plunge, and went bounding down the slope, sending
the smaller stuff flying before at each contact with the earth.
Though completely relaxed, and with the snowshoes on my back acting as
a buffer, the landing was something of a jolt. For a few seconds I lay
limp and spread out, and drifted slowly along with the slow-sliding
mass of macadam. When this came to rest, I rose up and with the
greatest concern for my foundation, made my way upwards, and at last
lay down to breathe and rest upon the solid granite shoulder of Sierra
Blanca.
In ten hours the midnight train would be due in Fort Garland, and as
the way was all downgrade, I hoped that my strength would hold out
till I caught it. But, turning my eyes from the descent to the summit,
I forgot the world below, and also my poison-weakened body. Suddenly I
felt and knew only the charm and the call of the summit. There are
times when Nature completely commands her citizens. A splendid
landscape, sunset clouds, or a rainbow on a near-by mountain's
slope,--by these one may be as completely charmed and made as
completely captive as were those who heard the music of Orpheus' lyre.
My youthful dream had been to scale peak after peak, and from the
earthly spires to see the scenic world far below and far away. All
this had come true, though of many trips into the sky and cloudland,
none had been up to the bold heights of Blanca. Thinking that the
poisoned water might take me from the list of those who seek good
tidings in the heights, I suddenly determined to reach those wintry
wonder-heights while yet I had the strength. I rose from relaxation,
laid down my snowshoes, and started for the summit.
Blanca is a mountain with an enormous amount of material in
it,--enough for a score of sizable peaks. Its battered head is nearly
two thousand feet above its rugged shoulder. The sun sank slowly as I
moved along a rocky skyline ridge and at last gained the summit.
Beyond an infinite ocean of low, broken peaks, sank the sun. It was a
wonderful sunset effect in that mountain-dotted, mountain-walled
plain, the San Luis Valley. Mist-wreathed peaks rose from the plain,
one side glowing in burning gold, the other bannered with black
shadows. The low, ragged clouds dragged slanting shadows across the
golden pale. A million slender silver threads were flung out in a
measureless horizontal fan from the far-away sun. The sunset from the
summit of Sierra Blanca was the grandest that I have ever seen. The
prismatic brilliancy played on peak and cloud, then changed into
purple, fading into misty gray, while the light of this strong
mountain day slowly vanished in the infinite silence of a perfect
mountain night.
Then came the serious business of getting down and off the rough slope
and out of the inky woods before darkness took complete possession.
After intense vigilance and effort for two hours, I emerged from the
forest-robed slope and started across the easy, sloping plain beneath
a million stars.
The night was mild and still. Slowly, across the wide brown way, I
made my course, guided by a low star that hung above Fort Garland. My
strength ran low, and, in order to sustain it, I moved slowly, lying
down and relaxing every few minutes. My mind was clear and strangely
active. With pleasure I recalled in order the experiences of the day
and the wonderful sunset with which it came triumphantly to a close.
As I followed a straight line across the cactus-padded plains,
I could not help wondering whether the Denver physicians would tell
me that going up to see the sunset was a serious blunder, or a
poison-eliminating triumph. However, the possibility of dying was a
thought that never came.
At eleven o'clock, when instinctively and positively I felt that I had
traveled far enough, I paused; but from Fort Garland neither sound nor
light came to greet me in the silent, mysterious night. I might pass
close to the low, dull adobes of this station without realizing its
presence. So confident was I that I had gone far enough that I
commenced a series of constantly enlarging semicircles, trying to
locate in the darkness the hidden fort. In the midst of these, a
coyote challenged, and a dog answered. I hastened toward the dog and
came upon a single low adobe full of Mexicans who could not understand
me. However, their soft accents awakened vivid memories in my mind,
and distinctly my strangely stimulated brain took me back through
fifteen years to the seedling orange groves in the land of to-morrow
where I had lingered and learned to speak their tongue. An offer of
five dollars for transportation to Fort Garland in time for the
midnight train sent Mexicans flying in all directions as though I had
hurled a bomb.
Two boys with an ancient, wobbling horse and buckboard landed me at
the platform as the headlight-glare of my train swept across it. The
big, good-natured conductor greeted me with "Here's the Snow Man
again,--worse starved than ever!"
The Wealth of the Woods
The Wealth of the Woods
The ancients told many wonderful legends concerning the tree, and
claimed for it numerous extraordinary qualities. Modern experience is
finding some of these legends to be almost literal truth, and
increasing knowledge of the tree shows that it has many of those high
qualities for which it was anciently revered. Though people no longer
think of it as the Tree of Life, they are beginning to realize that
the tree is what enables our race to make a living and to live
comfortably and hopefully upon this beautiful world.
Camping among forests quickly gives one a home feeling for them and
develops an appreciation of their value. How different American
history might have been had Columbus discovered a treeless land! The
American forests have largely contributed to the development of the
country. The first settlers on the Atlantic coast felled and used the
waiting trees for home-building; they also used wood for fuel,
furniture, and fortifications. When trading-posts were established in
the wilderness the axe was as essential as the gun. From Atlantic to
Pacific the pioneers built their cabins of wood. As the country
developed, wood continued to be indispensable; it was used in almost
every industry, and to-day it has a more general use than ever.
Forests enrich us in many ways. One of these is through the supply of
wood which they produce,--which they annually produce. Wood is one of
the most useful materials used by man. Wood is the home-making
material. It gives good cheer to a million hearthstones. How
extensively it is used for tools, furniture, and vehicles, for mine
timbers and railroad development! The living influences which forests
exert, the environments which they create and maintain, are potent to
enable man best to manage and control the earth, the air, and the
water, so that these will give him the greatest service and do him the
least damage.
[Illustration: SPANISH MOSS AT LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA]
Forests are water-distributors, and everywhere their presence tends to
prevent both floods and extreme low water; they check evaporation
and assist drainage; they create soil; they resist sudden changes of
temperature; they break and temper the winds; they do sanitary work by
taking impurities from the air; they shelter and furnish homes for
millions of birds which destroy enormous numbers of weed-seed and
injurious insects. Lastly, and possibly most important, forests make
this earth comfortable and beautiful. Next to the soil, they are the
most useful and helpful of Nature's agencies.
Forests are moderators of climate. They heat and cool slowly. Their
slow response to change resists sudden changes, and, consequently,
they mitigate the rudeness with which sudden changes are always
accompanied. Sudden changes of temperature are often annoying and
enervating to man, and frequently do severe damage to domestic plants
and animals. They sometimes have what may be called an explosive
effect upon the life-tissues of many plants and animals which man has
domesticated and is producing for his benefit. Many plants have been
domesticated and largely so specialized that they have been rendered
less hardy. With good care, these plants are heavy producers, but, to
have from them a premium harvest each year, they need the genial
clime, the stimulating shelter, and the constant protection which only
forests can supply. Closely allied to changes of temperature is the
movement of the air. In the sea every peninsula is a breakwater: on
land every grove is a windbreak. The effect of the violence of high
winds on fruited orchards and fields of golden grain may be compared
to the beatings of innumerable clubs. Hot waves and cold waves come
like withering breaths of flame and frost to trees and plants. High
winds may be mastered by the forest. The forest will make even the
Storm King calm, and it will also soften, temper, and subdue the
hottest or the coldest waves that blow. Forests may be placed so as to
make every field a harbor.
The air is an invisible blotter that is constantly absorbing moisture.
Its capacity to evaporate and absorb increases with rapidity of
movement. Roughly, six times as much water is evaporated from a place
that is swept by a twenty-five-mile wind as from a place in the dead
calm of the forest. The quantity of water evaporated within a forest
or in its shelter is many times less than is evaporated from the soil
in an exposed situation. This shelter and the consequent decreased
evaporation may save a crop in a dry season. During seasons of scanty
rainfall the crops often fail, probably not because sufficient water
has not fallen, but because the thirsty winds have drawn from the soil
so much moisture that the water-table in the soil is lowered below the
reach of the roots of the growing plants.
In the arid West the extra-dry winds are insatiable. In many
localities their annual capacity to absorb water is greater than the
annual precipitation of water. In "dry-farming" localities, the
central idea is to save all the water that Nature supplies, to prevent
the moisture from evaporating, to protect it from the robber winds.
Forests greatly check evaporation, and Professor L. G. Carpenter, the
celebrated irrigation engineer, says that forests are absolutely
necessary for the interests of irrigated agriculture. Considering the
many influences of the forest that are beneficial to agriculture, it
would seem as though ideal forest environments would be the best
annual assurance that the crops of the field would not fail and that
the soil would most generously respond to the seed-sower.
So well is man served in the distribution of the waters and the
management of their movements by the forests, that forests seem almost
to think. The forest is an eternal mediator between winds and gravity
in their never-ending struggle for the possession of the waters. The
forest seems to try to take the intermittent and ever-varying rainfall
and send the collected waters in slow and steady stream back to the
sea. It has marked success, and one may say it is only to the extent
the forest succeeds in doing this that the waters become helpful to
man. Possibly they may need assistance in this work. Anyway, so great
is the evaporation on the mountains of the West that John Muir says,
"Cut down the groves and the streams will vanish." Many investigators
assert that only thirty per cent of the rainfall is returned by the
rivers to the sea. Evaporation--winds--probably carry away the
greater portion of the remainder. Afforestation has created springs
and streams, not by increasing rainfall, although the forests may do
this, but by saving the water that falls,--by checking evaporation. On
some exposed watersheds the winds carry off as much as ninety per cent
of the annual precipitation. It seems plain that wider, better forests
would mean deeper, steadier streams. Forests not only check
evaporation, but they store water and guard it from the greed of
gravity. The forest gets the water into the ground where a brake is
put upon the pull of gravity. Forest floors are covered with fluffy
little rugs and pierced with countless tree-roots. So all-absorbing is
the porous, rug-covered forest floor that most of the water that falls
in the forest goes into the ground; a small percentage may run off on
the surface, but the greater part settles into the earth and seeps
slowly by subterranean drainage, till at last it bubbles out in a
spring some distance away and below the place where the raindrops came
to earth. The underground drainage, upon which the forest insists, is
much slower and steadier than the surface drainage of a treeless
place. The tendency of the forest is to take the water of the widely
separated rainy days and dole it out daily to the streams. The forest
may be described as a large, ever-leaking reservoir.
The forest is so large a reservoir that it rarely overflows, and
seepage from it is so slow that it seldom goes dry. The presence of a
forest on a watershed tends to give the stream which rises thereon its
daily supply of water, whether it rains every day or not. By checking
evaporation, the forest swells the volume of sea-going water in this
stream, and thereby increases its water-power and makes it more
useful as a deep waterway. Forests so regulate stream-flow that
if all the watersheds were forested but few floods would occur.
Forest-destruction has allowed many a flood to form and foam and to
ruin a thousand homes. A deforested hillside may, in a single storm,
loose the hoarded soil of a thousand years. Deforestation may result
in filling a river-channel and in stopping boats a thousand miles
downstream. By bringing forests to our aid, we may almost domesticate
and control winds and waters!
One of the most important resources is soil,--the cream of the earth,
the plant-food of the world. Scientists estimate that it takes nature
ten thousand years to create a foot of soil. This heritage of ages,
though so valuable and so slowly created, may speedily be washed away
and lost. Forests help to anchor it and to hold it in productive
places. Every tree stands upon an inverted basket of roots and
rootlets. Rains may come and rains may go, but these roots hold the
soil in place. The soil of forest-covered hillsides is reinforced and
anchored with a webwork of the roots and rootlets of the forest.
Assisting in the soil-anchorage is the accumulation of twigs and
leaves, the litter rugs on the forest floor. These cover the soil, and
protect it from both wind and water erosion. The roots and rugs not
only hold soil, but add to the soil matter by catching and holding the
trash, silt, dust, and sediment that is blown or washed into the
forest. The forest also creates new soil, enriches the very land it
is using. Trash on a forest floor absorbs nitrogenous matter from the
air; every fallen leaf is a flake of a fertilizer; roots pry rocks
apart, and this sets up chemical action. Acids given off by tree-roots
dissolve even the rocks, and turn these to soil. A tree, unlike most
plants, creates more soil than it consumes. In a forest the soil is
steadily growing richer and deeper.
Birds are one of the resources of the country. They are the
protectors, the winged watchmen, of the products which man needs.
Birds are hearty eaters, and the food which they devour consists
mostly of noxious weed-seed and injurious insects. Several species of
birds feed freely upon caterpillars, moths, wood-lice, wood-borers,
and other deadly tree-enemies. Most species of birds need the forest
for shelter, a home, and a breeding-place; and, having the forest,
they multiply and fly out into the fields and orchards, and wage a
more persistent warfare even than the farmer upon the insistent and
innumerable crop-injuring weeds, and also the swarms of insatiable
crop-devouring insects. Birds work for us all the time, and board
themselves most of the time. Birds are of inestimable value to
agriculture, but many of these useful species need forest shelter. So
to lose a forest means at the same time to lose the service of these
birds.
The forest is a sanitary agent. It is constantly eliminating
impurities from the earth and the air. Trees check, sweep, and filter
from the air quantities of filthy, germ-laden dust. Their leaves
absorb the poisonous gases from the air. Roots assist in drainage, and
absorb impurities from the soil. Roots also give off acids, and these
acids, together with the acids released by the fallen, decaying
leaves, have a sterilizing effect upon the soil. Trees help to keep
the earth sweet and clean, and water which comes from a forested
watershed is likely to be pure. Many unsanitary areas have been
redeemed and rendered healthy by tree-planting.
Numerous are the products and the influences of the trees. Many
medicines for the sick-room are compounded wholly or in part from the
bark, the fruit, the juices, or the leaves of trees. Fruits and nuts
are at least the poetry of the dining-table. One may say of trees what
the French physician said of water: needed externally, internally, and
eternally! United we stand, but divided we fall, is the history of
peoples and forests. Forest-destruction seems to offer the speediest
way by which a nation may go into decline or death. "Without forests"
are two words that may be written upon the maps of most depopulated
lands and declining nations.
When one who is acquainted with both history and natural history reads
of a nation that "its forests are destroyed," he naturally pictures
the train of evils that inevitably follow,--the waste and failure that
will come without the presence of forests to prevent. He realizes that
the ultimate condition to be expected in this land is a waste of
desolate distances, arched with a gray, sad sky beneath which a few
lonely ruins stand crumbling and pathetic in the desert's drifting
sand.
The trees are our friends. As an agency for promoting and sustaining
the general welfare, the forest stands preëminent. A nation which
appreciates trees, which maintains sufficient forests, and these in
the most serviceable places, may expect to enjoy regularly the richest
of harvests; it will be a nation of homes and land that is
comfortable, full of hope, and beautiful.
The Forest Fire
The Forest Fire
Forest fires led me to abandon the most nearly ideal journey through
the wilds I had ever embarked upon, but the conflagrations that took
me aside filled a series of my days and nights with wild, fiery
exhibitions and stirring experiences. It was early September and I had
started southward along the crest of the continental divide of the
Rocky Mountains in northern Colorado. All autumn was to be mine and
upon this alpine skyline I was to saunter southward, possibly to the
land of cactus and mirage. Not being commanded by either the calendar
or the compass, no day was to be marred by hurrying. I was just to
linger and read all the nature stories in the heights that I could
comprehend or enjoy. From my starting-place, twelve thousand feet
above the tides, miles of continental slopes could be seen that sent
their streams east and west to the two far-off seas. With many a
loitering advance, with many a glad going back, intense days were
lived. After two great weeks I climbed off the treeless heights and
went down into the woods to watch and learn the deadly and dramatic
ways of forest fires.
This revolution in plans was brought about by the view from amid the
broken granite on the summit of Long's Peak. Far below and far away
the magnificent mountain distances reposed in the autumn sunshine. The
dark crags, snowy summits, light-tipped peaks, bright lakes, purple
forests traced with silver streams and groves of aspen,--all fused and
faded away in the golden haze. But these splendid scenes were being
blurred and blotted out by the smoke of a dozen or more forest fires.
[Illustration: A FOREST FIRE ON THE GRAND RIVER]
Little realizing that for six weeks I was to hesitate on
fire-threatened heights and hurry through smoke-filled forests, I took
a good look at the destruction from afar and then hastened toward the
nearest fire-front. This was a smoke-clouded blaze on the Rabbit-Ear
Range that was storming its way eastward. In a few hours it would
travel to the Grand River, which flowed southward through a
straight, mountain-walled valley that was about half a mile wide.
Along the river, occupying about half the width of the valley, was a
picturesque grassy avenue that stretched for miles between ragged
forest-edges.
There was but little wind and, hoping to see the big game that the
flames might drive into the open, I innocently took my stand in the
centre of the grassy stretch directly before the fire. This great
smoky fire-billow, as I viewed it from the heights while I was
descending, was advancing with a formidable crooked front about three
miles across. The left wing was more than a mile in advance of the
active though lagging right one. As I afterward learned, the
difference in speed of the two wings was caused chiefly by topography;
the forest conditions were similar, but the left wing had for some
time been burning up a slope while the right had traveled down one.
Fire burns swiftly up a slope, but slowly down it. Set fire
simultaneously to the top and the bottom of a forest on a steep slope
and the blaze at the bottom will overrun at least nine-tenths of the
area. Flame and the drafts that it creates sweep upward.
Upon a huge lava boulder in the grassy stretch I commanded a view of
more than a mile of the forest-edge and was close to where a game
trail came into it out of the fiery woods. On this burning
forest-border a picturesque, unplanned wild-animal parade passed
before me.
Scattered flakes of ashes were falling when a herd of elk led the
exodus of wild folk from the fire-doomed forest. They came stringing
out of the woods into the open, with both old and young going forward
without confusion and as though headed for a definite place or
pasture. They splashed through a beaver pond without stopping and
continued their way up the river. There was no show of fear, no
suggestion of retreat. They never looked back. Deer straggled out
singly and in groups. It was plain that all were fleeing from danger,
all were excitedly trying to get out of the way of something; and they
did not appear to know where they were going. Apparently they gave
more troubled attention to the roaring, the breath, and the movements
of that fiery, mysterious monster than to the seeking of a place of
permanent safety. In the grassy open, into which the smoke was
beginning to drift and hang, the deer scattered and lingered. At each
roar of the fire they turned hither and thither excitedly to look and
listen. A flock of mountain sheep, in a long, narrow, closely pressed
rank and led by an alert, aggressive bighorn, presented a fine
appearance as it raced into the open. The admirable directness of
these wild animals put them out of the category occupied by tame,
"silly sheep." Without slackening pace they swept across the grassy
valley in a straight line and vanished in the wooded slope beyond. Now
and then a coyote appeared from somewhere and stopped for a time in
the open among the deer; all these wise little wolves were a trifle
nervous, but each had himself well in hand. Glimpses were had of two
stealthy mountain lions, now leaping, now creeping, now swiftly
fleeing.
Bears were the most matter-of-fact fellows in the exodus. Each
loitered in the grass and occasionally looked toward the oncoming
danger. Their actions showed curiosity and anger, but not alarm. Each
duly took notice of the surrounding animals, and one old grizzly even
struck viciously at a snarling coyote. Two black bear cubs, true to
their nature, had a merry romp. Even these serious conditions could
not make them solemn. Each tried to prevent the other from climbing a
tree that stood alone in the open; around this tree they clinched,
cuffed, and rolled about so merrily that the frightened wild folks
were attracted and momentarily forgot their fears. The only birds seen
were some grouse that whirred and sailed by on swift, definite wings;
they were going somewhere.
With subdued and ever-varying roar the fire steadily advanced. It
constantly threw off an upcurling, unbroken cloud of heavy smoke that
hid the flames from view. Now and then a whirl of wind brought a
shower of sparks together with bits of burning bark out over the open
valley.
Just as the flames were reaching the margin of the forest a great
bank of black smoke curled forward and then appeared to fall into the
grassy open. I had just a glimpse of a few fleeing animals, then all
became hot, fiery, and dark. Red flames darted through swirling black
smoke. It was stifling. Leaping into a beaver pond, I lowered my own
sizzling temperature and that of my smoking clothes. The air was too
hot and black for breathing; so I fled, floundering through the water,
down Grand River.
A quarter of a mile took me beyond danger-line and gave me fresh air.
Here the smoke ceased to settle to the earth, but extended in a light
upcurling stratum a few yards above it. Through this smoke the
sunlight came so changed that everything around was magically covered
with a canvas of sepia or rich golden brown. I touched the burned
spots on hands and face with real, though raw, balsam and then plunged
into the burned-over district to explore the extensive ruins of the
fire.
A prairie fire commonly consumes everything to the earth-line and
leaves behind it only a black field. Rarely does a forest fire make
so clean a sweep; generally it burns away the smaller limbs and the
foliage, leaving the tree standing all blackened and bristling. This
fire, like thousands of others, consumed the litter carpet on the
forest floor and the mossy covering of the rocks; it ate the
underbrush, devoured the foliage, charred and burned the limbs, and
blackened the trunks. Behind was a dead forest in a desolate field, a
territory with millions of bristling, mutilated trees, a forest ruin
impressively picturesque and pathetic. From a commanding ridge I
surveyed this ashen desert and its multitude of upright figures all
blurred and lifeless; these stood everywhere,--in the gulches, on the
slopes, on the ridges against the sky,--and they bristled in every
vanishing distance. Over the entire area only a few trees escaped with
their lives; these were isolated in soggy glacier meadows or among
rock fields and probably were defended by friendly air-currents when
the fiery billow rolled over them.
When I entered the burn that afternoon the fallen trees that the fire
had found were in ashes, the trees just killed were smoking, while
the standing dead trees were just beginning to burn freely. That
night these scattered beacons strangely burned among the multitudinous
dead. Close to my camp all through that night several of these fire
columns showered sparks like a fountain, glowed and occasionally
lighted up the scene with flaming torches. Weird and strange in the
night were the groups of silhouetted figures in a shadow-dance between
me and the flickering, heroic torches.
The greater part of the area burned over consisted of mountain-slopes
and ridges that lay between the altitudes of nine thousand and eleven
thousand feet. The forest was made up almost entirely of Engelmann and
Douglas spruces, alpine fir, and flexilis pine. A majority of these
trees were from fifteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, and those
examined were two hundred and fourteen years of age. Over the greater
extent of the burn the trees were tall and crowded, about two thousand
to the acre. As the fire swept over about eighteen thousand acres, the
number of trees that perished must have approximated thirty-six
million.
Fires make the Rocky Mountains still more rocky. This bald fact stuck
out all through this burn and in dozens of others afterward visited.
Most Rocky Mountain fires not only skin off the humus but so cut up
the fleshy soil and so completely destroy the fibrous bindings that
the elements quickly drag much of it from the bones and fling it down
into the stream-channels. Down many summit slopes in these mountains,
where the fires went to bed-rock, the snows and waters still scoot and
scour. The fire damage to some of these steep slopes cannot be
repaired for generations and even centuries. Meantime these disfigured
places will support only a scattered growth of trees and sustain only
a sparse population of animals.
In wandering about I found that the average thickness of
humus--decayed vegetable matter--consumed by this fire was about five
inches. The removal of even these few inches of covering had in many
places exposed boulders and bed-rock. On many shallow-covered steeps
the soil-anchoring roots were consumed and the productive heritage of
ages was left to be the early victim of eager running water and
insatiable gravity.
Probably the part of this burn that was most completely devastated was
a tract of four or five hundred acres in a zone a little below
timber-line. Here stood a heavy forest on solid rock in thirty-two
inches of humus. The tree-roots burned with the humus, and down
crashed the trees into the flames. The work of a thousand years was
undone in a day!
The loss of animal life in this fire probably was not heavy; in five
or six days of exploring I came upon fewer than three dozen fire
victims of all kinds. Among the dead were groundhogs, bobcats,
snowshoe rabbits, and a few grouse. Flying about the waste were
crested jays, gray jays ("camp birds"), and magpies. Coyotes came
early to search for the feast prepared by the fire.
During the second day's exploration on the burn, a grizzly bear and I
came upon two roasted deer in the end of a gulch. I was first to
arrive, so Mr. Grizzly remained at what may have been a respectful
distance, restlessly watching me. With his nearness and impolite
stare I found it very embarrassing to eat alone. However, two days of
fasting had prepared me for this primitive feast; and, knowing that
bears were better than their reputation, I kept him waiting until I
was served. On arising to go, I said, "Come, you may have the
remainder; there is plenty of it."
The fire was followed by clear weather, and for days the light ash lay
deep and undisturbed over the burn. One morning conditions changed and
after a few preliminary whirlwinds a gusty gale set in. In a few
minutes I felt and appeared as though just from an ash-barrel. The
ashen dust-storm was blinding and choking, and I fled for the unburned
heights. So blinding was the flying ash that I was unable to see; and,
to make matters worse, the trees with fire-weakened foundations and
limbs almost severed by flames commenced falling. The limbs were flung
about in a perfectly reckless manner, while the falling trees took a
fiendish delight in crashing down alongside me at the very moment that
the storm was most blinding. Being without nerves and incidentally
almost choked, I ignored the falling bodies and kept going.
Several times I rushed blindly against limb-points and was rudely
thrust aside; and finally I came near walking off into space from the
edge of a crag. After this I sought temporary refuge to the leeward of
a boulder, with the hope that the weakened trees would speedily fall
and end the danger from that source. The ash flew thicker than ever
did gale-blown desert dust; it was impossible to see and so nearly
impossible to breathe that I was quickly driven forth. I have been in
many dangers, but this is the only instance in which I was ever
irritated by Nature's blind forces. At last I made my escape from
them.
From clear though wind-swept heights I long watched the burned area
surrender its slowly accumulated, rich store of plant-food to the
insatiable and all-sweeping wind. By morning, when the wind abated,
the garnered fertility and phosphates of generations were gone, and
the sun cast the shadows of millions of leafless trees upon rock bones
and barren earth. And the waters were still to take their toll.
Of course Nature would at once commence to repair and would again
upbuild upon the foundations left by the fire; such, however, were the
climatic and geological conditions that improving changes would come
but slowly. In a century only a good beginning could be made. For
years the greater portion of the burn would be uninhabitable by bird
or beast; those driven forth by this fire would seek home and food in
the neighboring territory, where this influx of population would
compel interesting readjustments and create bitter strife between the
old wild-folk population and the new.
This fire originated from a camp-fire which a hunting-party had left
burning; it lived three weeks and extended eastward from the
starting-place. Along most of its course it burned to the timber-line
on the left, while rocky ridges, glacier meadows, and rock fields
stopped its extension and determined the side line on the right; it
ran out of the forest and stopped in the grassy Grand River Valley.
Across its course were a number of rocky ridges and grassy gorges
where the fire could have been easily stopped by removing the
scattered trees,--by burning the frail bridges that enabled the fire
to travel from one dense forest to abundant fuel beyond. In a city it
is common to smother a fire with water or acid, but with a forest fire
usually it is best to break its inflammable line of communication by
removing from before it a width of fibrous material. The axe, rake,
hoe, and shovel are the usual fire-fighting tools.
A few yards away from the spot where the fire started I found, freshly
cut in the bark of an aspen, the inscription:--
J S M
YALE 18
A bullet had obliterated the two right-hand figures.
For days I wandered over the mountains, going from fire to smoke and
studying burns new and old. One comparatively level tract had been
fireswept in 1791. On this the soil was good. Lodge-pole pine had
promptly restocked the burn, but these trees were now being smothered
out by a promising growth of Engelmann spruce.
Fifty-seven years before my visit a fire had burned over about four
thousand acres and was brought to a stand by a lake, a rocky ridge,
and a wide fire-line that a snowslide had cleared through the woods.
The surface of the burn was coarse, disintegrated granite and sloped
toward the west, where it was exposed to prevailing high westerly
winds. A few kinnikinnick rugs apparently were the only green things
upon the surface, and only a close examination revealed a few stunted
trees starting. It was almost barren. Erosion was still active; there
were no roots to bind the finer particles together or to anchor them
in place. One of the most striking features of the entire burn was
that the trees killed by the fire fifty-seven years ago were standing
where they died. They had excellent root-anchorage in the shattered
surface, and many of them probably would remain erect for years. The
fire that killed them had been a hot one, and it had burned away most
of the limbs, and had so thoroughly boiled the pitch through the
exterior of the trunk that the wood was in an excellent state of
preservation.
[Illustration: A YELLOW PINE, FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AFTER IT HAD BEEN
KILLED BY FIRE]
Another old burn visited was a small one in an Engelmann spruce forest
on a moderate northern slope. It had been stopped while burning in
very inflammable timber. It is probable that on this occasion either a
rain or snow had saved the surrounding forest. The regrowth had slowly
extended from the margin of the forest to the centre of the burn until
it was restocked.
One morning I noticed two small fires a few miles down the mountain
and went to examine them. Both were two days old, and both had started
from unextinguished camp-fires. One had burned over about an acre and
the other about four times that area. If the smaller had not been
built against an old snag it probably would have gone out within a few
hours after the congressman who built it moved camp. It was
wind-sheltered and the blaze had traveled slowly in all directions and
burned a ragged circle that was about sixty feet across.
The outline of the other blaze was that of a flattened ellipse, like
the orbit of many a wandering comet in the sky. This had gone before
the wind, and the windward end of its orbit closely encircled the
place of origin. The camp-fire nucleus of this blaze had also been
built in the wrong place,--against a fallen log which lay in a deep
bed of decaying needles.
Of course each departing camper should put out his camp-fire. However,
a camp-fire built on a humus-covered forest floor, or by a log, or
against a dead tree, is one that is very difficult to extinguish. With
the best of intentions one may deluge such a fire with water without
destroying its potency. A fire thus secreted appears, like a lie, to
have a spark of immortality in it.
A fire should not be built in contact with substances that will burn,
for such fuel will prolong the fire's life and may lead it far into
the forest. There is but little danger to the forest from a fire that
is built upon rock, earth, sand, or gravel. A fire so built is
isolated and it usually dies an early natural death. Such a fire--one
built in a safe and sane place--is easily extinguished.
The larger of these two incipient fires was burning quietly, and that
night I camped within its orbit. Toward morning the wind began to
blow, this slow-burning surface fire began to leap, and before long it
was a crown fire, traveling rapidly among the tree-tops. It swiftly
expanded into an enormous delta of flame. At noon I looked back and
down upon it from a mountain-top, and it had advanced about three
miles into a primeval forest sea, giving off more smoke than a
volcano.
I went a day's journey and met a big fire that was coming aggressively
forward against the wind. It was burning a crowded, stunted growth of
forest that stood in a deep litter carpet. The smoke, which flowed
freely from it, was distinctly ashen green; this expanded and
maintained in the sky a smoky sheet that was several miles in length.
Before the fire lay a square mile or so of old burn which was covered
with a crowded growth of lodge-pole pine that stood in a deep,
criss-crossed entanglement of fallen fire-killed timber. A thousand or
more of these long, broken dead trees covered each acre with wreckage,
and in this stood upward of five thousand live young ones. This would
make an intensely hot and flame-writhing fire. It appears that a
veteran spruce forest had occupied this burn prior to the fire. The
fire had occurred fifty-seven years before. Trees old and young
testified to the date. In the margin of the living forest on the edge
of the burn were numerous trees that were fire-scarred fifty-seven
years before; the regrowth on the burn was an even-aged fifty-six-year
growth.
That night, as the fire neared the young tree growth, I scaled a rock
ledge to watch it. Before me, and between the fire and the rocks,
stood several veteran lodge-pole pines in a mass of dead-and-down
timber. Each of these trees had an outline like that of a plump
Lombardy poplar. They perished in the most spectacular manner.
Blazing, wind-blown bark set fire to the fallen timber around their
feet; this fire, together with the close, oncoming fire-front, so
heated the needles on the lodge-poles that they gave off a smoky gas;
this was issuing from every top when a rippling rill of purplish flame
ran up one of the trunks. Instantly there was a flash and white
flames flared upward more than one hundred feet, stood gushing for a
few seconds, and then went out completely. The other trees in close
succession followed and flashed up like giant geysers discharging
flame. This discharge was brief, but it was followed by every needle
on the trees glowing and changing to white incandescence, then
vanishing. In a minute these leafless lodge-poles were black and dead.
The fire-front struck and crossed the lodge-pole thicket in a flash;
each tree flared up like a fountain of gas and in a moment a deep,
ragged-edged lake of flame heaved high into the dark, indifferent
night. A general fire of the dead-and-down timber followed, and the
smelter heat of this cut the green trees down, the flames widely,
splendidly illuminating the surrounding mountains and changing a
cloud-filled sky to convulsed, burning lava.
Not a tree was left standing, and every log went to ashes. The burn
was as completely cleared as a fireswept prairie; in places there were
holes in the earth where tree-roots had burned out. This burn was an
ideal place for another lodge-pole growth, and three years later
these pines were growing thereon as thick as wheat in a field. In a
boggy area within the burn an acre or two of aspen sprang up; this
area, however, was much smaller than the one that the fire removed
from the bog. Aspens commonly hold territory and extend their holdings
by sprouting from roots; but over the greater portion of the bog the
fire had either baked or burned the roots, and this small aspen area
marked the wetter part of the bog, that in which the roots had
survived.
After destroying the lodge-pole growth the fire passed on, and the
following day it burned away as a quiet surface fire through a forest
of scattered trees. It crept slowly forward, with a yellow blaze only
a few inches high. Here and there this reddened over a pile of
cone-scales that had been left by a squirrel, or blazed up in a pile
of broken limbs or a fallen tree-top; it consumed the litter mulch and
fertility of the forest floor, but seriously burned only a few trees.
Advancing along the blaze, I came upon a veteran yellow pine that had
received a large pot-hole burn in its instep. As the Western yellow
pine is the best fire-fighter in the conifer family, it was puzzling
to account for this deep burn. On the Rocky Mountains are to be found
many picturesque yellow pines that have a dozen times triumphed over
the greatest enemy of the forest. Once past youth, these trees possess
a thick, corky, asbestos-like bark that defies the average fire. Close
to this injured old fellow was a rock ledge that formed an influential
part of its environment; its sloping surface shed water and fertility
upon its feet; cones, twigs, and trash had also slid down this and
formed an inflammable pile which, in burning, had bored into its
ankle. An examination of its annual rings in the burned hole revealed
the fact that it too had been slightly burned fifty-seven years
before. How long would it be until it was again injured by fire or
until some one again read its records?
Until recently a forest fire continued until stopped by rain or snow,
or until it came to the edge of the forest. I have notes on a forest
fire that lived a fluctuating life of four months. Once a fire
invades an old forest, it is impossible speedily to get rid of it. "It
never goes out," declared an old trapper. The fire will crawl into a
slow-burning log, burrow down into a root, or eat its way beneath a
bed of needles, and give off no sign of its presence. In places such
as these it will hibernate for weeks, despite rain or snow, and
finally some day come forth as ferocious as ever.
About twenty-four hours after the lodge-pole blaze a snow-storm came
to extinguish the surface fire. Two feet of snow--more than three
inches of water--fell. During the storm I was comfortable beneath a
shelving rock, with a fire in front; here I had a meal of wild
raspberries and pine-nuts and reflected concerning the uses of
forests, and wished that every one might better understand and feel
the injustice and the enormous loss caused by forest fires.
During the last fifty years the majority of the Western forest fires
have been set by unextinguished camp-fires, while the majority of the
others were the result of some human carelessness. The number of
preventable forest fires is but little less than the total number.
True, lightning does occasionally set a forest on fire; I have
personal knowledge of a number of such fires, but I have never known
lightning to set fire to a green tree. Remove the tall dead trees from
forests, and the lightning will lose the greater part of its kindling.
In forest protection, the rivers, ridge-tops, rocky gulches,
rock-fields, lake-shores, meadows, and other natural fire-resisting
boundary lines between forests are beginning to be used and can be
more fully utilized for fire-lines, fire-fighting, and fire-defying
places. These natural fire-barriers may be connected by barren cleared
lanes through the forest, so that a fire-break will isolate or run
entirely around any natural division of forest. With such a barrier a
fire could be kept within a given section or shut out of it.
In order to fight fire in a forest it must be made accessible by means
of roads and trails; these should run on or alongside the fire-barrier
so as to facilitate the movements of fire patrols or fire-fighters.
There should be with every forest an organized force of men who are
eternally vigilant to prevent or to fight forest fires. Fires should
be fought while young and small, before they are beyond control.
There should be crows'-nests on commanding crags and in each of these
should be a lookout to watch constantly for starting fires or
suspicious smoke in the surrounding sea of forest. The lookout should
have telephonic connection with rangers down the slopes. In our
national forests incidents like the following are beginning to occur:
Upon a summit is stationed a ranger who has two hundred thousand acres
of forest to patrol with his eyes. One morning a smudgy spot appears
upon the purple forest sea about fifteen miles to the northwest. The
lookout gazes for a moment through his glass and, although not certain
as to what it is, decides to get the distance with the range-finder.
At that instant, however, the wind acts upon the smudge and shows that
a fire exists and reveals its position. A ranger, through a telephone
at the forks of the trail below, hears from the heights, "Small fire
one mile south of Mirror Lake, between Spruce Fork and Bear Pass
Trail, close to O'Brien's Spring." In less than an hour a ranger leaps
from his panting pony and with shovel and axe hastily digs a narrow
trench through the vegetable mould in a circle around the fire. Then a
few shovelfuls of sand go upon the liveliest blaze and the fire is
under control. As soon as there lives a good, sympathetic public
sentiment concerning the forest, it will be comparatively easy to
prevent most forest fires from starting and to extinguish those that
do start.
With the snow over, I started for the scene of the first fire, and on
the way noticed how much more rapidly the snow melted in the open than
in a forest. The autumn sun was warm, and at the end of the first day
most of the snow in open or fireswept places was gone, though on the
forest floor the slushy, compacted snow still retained the greater
portion of its original moisture. On the flame-cleared slopes there
was heavy erosion; the fire had destroyed the root-anchorage of the
surface and consumed the trash that would ordinarily have absorbed
and delayed the water running off; but this, unchecked, had carried
off with it tons of earthy material. One slope on the first burn
suffered heavily; a part of this day's "wash" was deposited in a
beaver pond, of half an acre, which was filled to the depth of three
feet. The beavers, finding their subterranean exits filled with wash,
had escaped by tearing a hole in the top of their house.
Leaving this place, I walked across the range to look at a fire that
was burning beyond the bounds of the snowfall. It was in a heavily
forested cove and was rapidly undoing the constructive work of
centuries. This cove was a horseshoe-shaped one and apparently would
hold the fire within its rocky ridges. While following along one of
these ridges, I came to a narrow, tree-dotted pass, the only break in
the confining rocky barrier. As I looked at the fire down in the cove,
it was plain that with a high wind the fire would storm this pass and
break into a heavily forested alpine realm beyond. In one day two men
with axes could have made this pass impregnable to the assaults of any
fire, no matter how swift the wind ally; but men were not then
defending our forests and an ill wind was blowing.
Many factors help to determine the speed of these fires, and a number
of observations showed that under average conditions a fire burned
down a slope at about one mile an hour; on the level it traveled from
two to eight miles an hour, while up a slope it made from eight to
twelve. For short distances fires occasionally roared along at a speed
of fifty or sixty miles an hour and made a terrible gale of flames.
I hurried up into the alpine realm and after half an hour scaled a
promontory and looked back to the pass. A great cloud of smoke was
streaming up just beyond and after a minute tattered sheets of flame
were shooting high above it. Presently a tornado of smoke and flame
surged into the pass and for some seconds nothing could be seen. As
this cleared, a succession of tongues and sheets of flame tried to
reach over into the forest on the other side of the pass, but finally
gave it up. Just as I was beginning to feel that the forest around me
was safe, a smoke-column arose among the trees by the pass. Probably
during the first assault of the flames a fiery dart had been hurled
across the pass.
Up the shallow forested valley below me came the flames, an inverted
Niagara of red and yellow, with flying spray of black. It sent forward
a succession of short-lived whirlwinds that went to pieces
explosively, hurling sparks and blazing bark far and high. During one
of its wilder displays the fire rolled forward, an enormous horizontal
whirl of flame, and then, with thunder and roar, the molten flames
swept upward into a wall of fire; this tore to pieces, collapsed, and
fell forward in fiery disappearing clouds. With amazing quickness the
splendid hanging garden on the terraced heights was crushed and
blackened. By my promontory went this magnificent zigzag surging front
of flame, blowing the heavens full of sparks and smoke and flinging
enormous fiery rockets. Swift and slow, loud and low, swelling and
vanishing, it sang its eloquent death song.
A heavy stratum of tarlike smoke formed above the fire as it toned
down. Presently this black stratum was uplifted near the centre and
then pierced with a stupendous geyser of yellow flame, which reddened
as it fused and tore through the tarry smoke and then gushed
astonishingly high above.
A year or two prior to the fire a snow slide from the heights had
smashed down into the forest. More than ten thousand trees were mowed,
raked, and piled in one mountainous mass of wreckage upon some crags
and in a narrow-throated gulch between them. This wood-pile made the
geyser flames and a bonfire to startle even the giants. While I was
trying to account for this extraordinary display, there came a series
of explosions in rapid succession, ending in a violent crashing one.
An ominous, elemental silence followed. All alone I had enjoyed the
surprises, the threatening uncertainties, and the dangerous
experiences that swiftly came with the fire-line battles of this long,
smoky war; but when those awful explosions came I for a time wished
that some one were with me. Had there been, I should have turned and
asked, while getting a better grip on my nerves, "What on earth is
that?" While the startled mountain-walls were still shuddering with
the shock, an enormous agitated column of steam shot several hundred
feet upward where the fiery geyser had flamed. Unable to account for
these strange demonstrations, I early made my way through heat and
smoke to the big bonfire. In the bottom of the gulch, beneath the
bonfire, flowed a small stream; just above the bonfire this stream had
been temporarily dammed by fire wreckage. On being released, the
accumulated waters thus gathered had rushed down upon the red-hot
rocks and cliffs and produced these explosions.
In the morning light this hanging terraced garden of yesterday's
forest glory was a stupendous charcoal drawing of desolation.
Insects in the Forest
Insects in the Forest
The big trees of California are never attacked by insects. This
immunity is extraordinary and may be the chief characteristic that
enables these noble trees to live so long. Unfortunately it is not
shared by other species. The American forests are infested with
thousands of species of injurious and destructive insects. These
insects, like the forest fires, annually kill numerous forest areas,
and in addition leave millions of deformed and sickly trees scattered
through the living forest to impair and imperil it. After some general
tree studies which have occupied odd times for years and extended
through the groves and forests of every State and Territory in the
Union, the conclusion has been forced upon me that the forests are
more widely wasted by insects than by fire.
Some of Nature's strange ways are exhibited in the interrelation of
insects and fires in tree-killing. It is common for the attack of one
of these tree-enemies to open the way for the depredations of the
other. The trees that insects kill quickly become dry and inflammable
and ready kindling for the forest fire. On the other hand, the
injuries that green trees often receive from forest fires render them
most susceptible to the attacks of insects.
This interrelation--almost coöperation--between these arch-enemies of
the forest was impressed upon me during my early tree studies. One day
I enjoyed a splendid forest sea from the summit of a granite crag that
pierced this purple expanse. Near the crag a few clumps of trees stood
out conspicuous in robes of sear yellow brown. Unable to account for
this coloring of their needles, I went down and looked them over. The
trees had recently been killed by insects. They were Western yellow
pine, and their needles, changed to greenish yellow, still clung to
them. In each clump of these pines there were several stunted or
deformed trees, or trees that showed a recent injury. The stunted and
injured trees in these clumps were attacked and killed by beetles the
summer before my visit. In these injured trees the beetles had
multiplied, and they emerged the following summer and made a deadly
attack upon the surrounding vigorous trees. Although this latter
attack was made only a month or two before my arrival, the trees were
already dead and their needles had changed to a sickly greenish
yellow. Amid one of these clumps was a veteran yellow pine that
lightning had injured a few years before. Beetles attacked and killed
this old pine about a year before I appeared upon the scene. It was
the only tree in this now dead clump that was attacked on that first
occasion; but some weeks before my visit the beetles in multiplied
numbers swarmed forth from it and speedily killed the sound
neighboring trees.
These conclusions were gathered from the condition of the trees
themselves together with a knowledge of beetle habits. Not a beetle
could be found in the lightning-injured pine, and its needles were dry
and yellow. The near-by dead pines were full of beetles and their
eggs; the needles, of a greenish yellow, were slightly tough and still
contained a little sap.
While I was in camp one evening, in the midst of these tree studies,
the veteran pine, now dead, was again struck by lightning. As
everything was drenched with rain, there appeared to be no likelihood
of fire. However, the following morning the old pine was ablaze. In
extinguishing the fire I found that it had started at the base of the
tree at a point where the bolt had descended and entered the earth. At
this place there was an accumulation of bark-bits from the trunk,
together with fallen twigs and needles from the dead tree-top. Thus a
dead, inflammable tree in the woods is kindling which at any moment
may become a torch and set fire to the surrounding green forest.
Although fires frequently sweep through and destroy a green forest,
they commonly have their start among dead trees or trash.
The pine beetle just mentioned attacks and burrows into trees for the
purpose of laying its eggs therein. When few in number they confine
their attacks to trees of low vitality,--those that will easily
succumb to their attack. The speedy death of the tree and the
resultant chemical change in its sap appear to be necessary for the
well-being of the deposited eggs or the youngsters that emerge from
them. When these beetles are numerous they freely attack and easily
kill the most vigorous of trees.
The pine beetle is one of a dozen species of bark beetles that are
grouped under a name that means "killer of trees." Each year they kill
many acres of forest, and almost every year some one depredation
extends over several thousand acres. The way of each species is
similar to that of the others. The beetles of each species vary in
length from a tenth to a fifth of an inch. They migrate in midsummer,
at the time of the principal attack. Swarming over the tree, they at
once bore into and through the bark. Here short transverse or vertical
galleries are run, and in these the eggs are laid.
In a short time the eggs hatch into grubs, and these at once start to
feed upon the inner bark at right angles to the galleries, extending
to right and left around the tree. It does not require many of them to
girdle the tree. Commonly the tree is dead in two months or less. All
these little animals remain in the tree until late spring or early
summer, when they emerge in multiplied swarms and repeat the deadly
work in other trees.
The depredations of these insects are enormous. During the early
eighties the Southern pine beetle ruined several thousand acres of
pines in Texas. Ten years later, 1890-92, it swarmed through western
North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia to southern Pennsylvania
and over an area aggregating seventy-five thousand square miles, and
killed pines of all species and ages, leaving but few alive. Within
the past few years the mountain and Western pine beetles have ruined a
one-hundred-thousand-acre lodge-pole pine tract in northeastern
Oregon, destroying not less than ninety per cent of the stand. During
the past decade the Black Hills beetle has been active over the Rocky
Mountains, where in some districts it has destroyed from ten to eighty
per cent of the Western yellow pines. In the Black Hills the forests
over several thousand square miles are ruined.
These bug-killed trees deteriorate rapidly. In most cases a
beetle-killed pine is pretty well rotted in five years and usually
falls to pieces in less than a decade. Borers attack upon the heels of
the beetles, and the holes made by the beetles admit water and fungi
into the wood. This rapidly reduces the wood to a punky, rotten mass.
One day in Colorado I tore a number of wind-wrecked, bug-killed trees
to pieces and was busily engaged examining the numerous population of
grubs and borers, when some robins and other birds discovered the
feast, collected, and impatiently awaited their turn. Perceiving the
situation, I dragged a fragment of a log to one side for examination
while the birds assembled to banquet and dispute.
Returning to the rotten logs for another grub-filled fragment, I
paused to watch some wasps that, like the birds, were feasting upon
these grubs. A wasp on finding a grub simply thrust his snout into the
grub and then braced himself firmly as he bored down and proceeded to
suck his victim's fluids. In throwing a log to one side I disturbed a
bevy of slender banqueters that I had not seen. Instantly a number of
wasps were effervescing round my head. Despite busy arms, they
effectively peppered my face, and I fled to a neighboring brook to
bathe my wounds.
While I was at a safe distance, cogitating as to the wisdom of
returning for further examination of the logs, a black bear appeared
down the opening. From his actions I realized that he had scented not
myself but the feast in the log-pile. After sniffling, pointing, and
tip-toeing, he lumbered toward the logs. Of course I was curious as to
the manner of his reception and allowed him to go unwarned to the
feast. Two Rocky Mountain jays gave a low, indifferent call on his
approach, but the other birds ignored his coming. With his fore paw he
tore a log apart and deftly picked up a number of grubs. All went well
until he climbed upon the pile of wreckage and rolled a broken log off
the top. This disturbed another wasp feast. Suddenly he grabbed his
nose with both fore paws and tumbled off the pile. For a few seconds
he was slapping and battling at a lively pace; then, with a
_woof-f-f-f!_ he fled--straight at me. I made a tangential move.
The hardwoods are also warred upon by bugs, weevils, borers, and
fungi. The percentage of swift deaths, however, that the insects cause
among the hardwoods is much smaller than that among the pines; but the
percentage of diseased and slow-dying hardwoods is much greater. The
methods of beetles that attack oaks, hickories, aspens, and birches
are similar to the methods of those that attack pines and spruces.
They attack in swarms, bore through the bark, and deposit their eggs
either in the inner bark or in the cambium,--the vitals of the tree.
The grubs, on hatching, begin to feed upon the tree's vitals. In this
feeding each grub commonly drives a minute tunnel from one to several
inches in length. Where scores of grubs hatch side by side they drive
a score of closely parallel tunnels. Commonly these are either
horizontal or vertical and generally they are numerous enough to make
many complete girdles around the tree. Girdling means cutting off the
circulation, and this produces quick death.
While these beetles are busy killing unnumbered millions of trees
annually, the various species of another group of beetles known as
weevils are active in deforming and injuring even a greater number.
They mutilate and deform trees by the millions. The work of the
white-pine weevil is particularly devilish. It deposits its eggs in
the vigorous shoots of the white-pine sapling. The eggs hatch, and the
grubs feed upon and kill the shoot. Another shoot bursts forth to take
the place of the one killed; this is attacked and either killed or
injured. The result is a stunted, crooked, and much-forked tree.
Borers attack trees both old and young of many species, and a few of
these species with wholesale deadly effect. Birches by the million
annually fall a prey to these tree-tunnelers, and their deadly work
has almost wiped the black locust out of existence. Borers pierce and
honeycomb the tree-trunk. If their work is not fatal, it is speedily
extended and made so by the fungi and rot that its holes admit into
the tree.
Trees, like people, often entertain a number of troubles at once and
have misfortunes in series. A seedling injured by one insect is more
likely to be attacked again, and by some other insect, than is the
sound seedling by its side. Let a seedling be injured, and relays of
insects--often several species at a time and each species with a way
of its own--will attack it through the seedling, sapling, pole, tree,
and veteran stages of its growth until it succumbs. Or let a vigorous
tree meet with an accident, and like an injured deer it becomes food
for an enemy. If lightning, wind, or sleet split the bark or break a
limb, through these wounds some spore or borer will speedily reach the
tree's vitals. In many cases the deadly work of parasitic plants and
fungi is interrelated with, and almost inseparable from, the
destructive operations of predacious insects. Many so-called tree
diseases are but the spread of rot and fungi through the wood by means
of an entrance bored by a borer, weevil, or beetle.
The bark of a tree, like the skin on one's body, is an impervious,
elastic armor that protects blood and tissues from the poisonous or
corrupting touch or seizure of thousands of deadly and incessantly
clamoring germs. Tear the skin on one's body or the bark upon a tree,
and eternally vigilant microbes at once sow the wound with the seeds
of destruction or decay. A single thoughtless stroke of an axe in the
bark of a tree may admit germs that will produce a kind of
blood-poisoning and cause slow death.
The false-tinder fungus apparently can spread and do damage only as it
is admitted into the tree through insect-holes or the wounds of
accidents. Yet its annual damage is almost beyond computation. This
rot is widely distributed and affects a large number of species. As
with insects, its outbreaks often occur and extend over wide areas
upon which its depredations are almost complete. As almost all trees
are susceptible to this punk-producer, it will not be easy to
suppress.
[Illustration: A TREE KILLED BY MISTLETOE AND BEETLES]
The study of forest insects has not progressed far enough to enable
one to make more than a rough approximation of the number of the
important species that attack our common trees. However, more than
five hundred species are known to afflict the sturdy oak, while four
hundred prey upon the bending willow. The birches supply food to about
three hundred of these predacious fellows, while poplars feed and
shelter almost as many. The pines and spruces are compelled
permanently to pension or provide for about three hundred families of
sucking, chewing parasites.
The recent ravages of the chestnut-tree blight and the appalling
depredations of the gypsy and brown-tailed moths, together with other
evils, suggest at once the bigness of these problems and the
importance of their study and solution. The insect army is as
innumerable as the leaves in the forest. This army occupies points of
vantage in every part of the tree zone, has an insatiable appetite, is
eternally vigilant for invasion, and is eager to multiply. It
maintains incessant warfare against the forest, and every tree that
matures must run a gantlet of enemies in series, each species of which
is armed with weapons long specialized for the tree's destruction.
Some trees escape unscarred, though countless numbers are killed and
multitudes maimed, which for a time live almost useless lives, ever
ready to spread insects and disease among the healthy trees.
Every part of the tree suffers; even its roots are cut to pieces and
consumed. Caterpillars, grubs, and beetles specialize on defoliation
and feed upon the leaves, the lungs of the trees. The partial
defoliation of the tree is devitalizing, and the loss of all its
leaves commonly kills it. Not only is the tree itself attacked but
also its efforts toward reproduction. The dainty bloom is food for a
number of insect beasts, while the seed is fed upon and made an
egg-depository by other enemies. Weevils, blight, gall, ants, aphids,
and lice prey upon it. The seed drops upon the earth into another army
that is hungry and waiting to devour it. The moment it sprouts it is
gnawed, stung, bitten, and bored by ever-active fiends.
Many forest trees are scarred in the base by ground fires. These trees
are entered by insects through the scars and become sources of rot and
insect infection. Although these trees may for a time live on, it is
with a rotten heart or as a mere hollow shell. A forest fire that
sweeps raging through the tree-tops has a very different effect: the
twigs and bark are burned off and the pitches are boiled through the
exterior of the trunk and the wood fortified against all sources of
decay. This preservative treatment often gives long endurance to
fire-killed timber, especially when the trees killed are yellow pine
or Douglas spruce. Many a night in the Rocky Mountains my eager,
blazing camp-fire was burning timber that forest fires had killed
forty and even sixty years before.
In forest protection and improvement the insect factor is one that
will not easily down. Controlling the depredations of beetles, borers,
weevils, and fungi calls for work of magnitude, but work that insures
success. This work consists of the constant removal of both the
infected trees and the dwarfed or injured ones that are susceptible to
infection. Most forest insects multiply with amazing rapidity; some
mother bark-beetles may have half a million descendants in less than
two years. Thus efforts for the control of insect outbreaks should
begin at once,--in the early stages of their activity. A single
infested tree may in a year or two spread destruction through
thousands of acres of forest.
Most insects have enemies to bite them. The ichneumon-fly spreads
death among injurious grubs. Efforts to control forest-enemies will
embrace the giving of aid and comfort to those insects that prey upon
them. Bugs will be hunted with bugs. Already the gypsy moth in the
East is being fought in this way. Many species of birds feed freely
upon weevils, borers, and beetles. Of these birds, the woodpeckers are
the most important. They must be protected and encouraged.
There are other methods of fighting the enemy. A striking and
successful device for putting an end to the spruce-destroying beetle
is to hack-girdle a spruce here and there in the forest at a season
when the physiological make-up of the tree will cause it to change
into a condition most favorable for the attraction of beetles. Like
carrion, this changed condition appears to be scented from all
quarters and afar. Swarms of beetles concentrate their attack upon
this tree and bury themselves in it and deposit their eggs. The
multiplied army will remain in the tree until late spring. Thus months
of time may be had to cut and burn the tree, with its myriads of
murderous guests. The freedom of the big trees from insect attacks
suggests that man as well as nature may develop or breed species of
trees that will better resist or even defy insects.
Insects are now damaging our forests to the extent of not less than
one hundred million dollars annually. This we believe to be a
conservative estimate. Yet these figures only begin to tell the story
of loss. They tell only the commercial value of the timber. The other
greater and higher values cannot be resolved into figures. Forest
influences and forest scenes add much to existence and bestow
blessings upon life that cannot be measured by gold.
Dr. Woodpecker, Tree-Surgeon
Dr. Woodpecker, Tree-Surgeon
Although the eagle has the emblematic place of honor in the United
States, the downy woodpecker is distinguished as the most useful bird
citizen. Of the eight hundred and three kinds of birds in North
America, his services are most helpful to man. He destroys destructive
forest insects. Long ago Nature selected the woodpecker to be the
chief caretaker--the physician and surgeon--of the tree world. This is
a stupendous task. Forests are extensive and are formed of hundreds of
species of trees. The American woodpeckers have the supervision of
uncounted acres that are forested with more than six hundred kinds of
trees.
With the exception of the California big tree, each tree species is
preyed upon by scores, and many species by hundreds, of injurious and
deadly insects. Five hundred kinds of insects are known to prey upon
the oak, and a complete count may show a thousand kinds. Many of these
insects multiply with amazing rapidity, and at all times countless
numbers of these aggressive pests form warrior armies with which the
woodpecker must constantly contend.
In this incessant struggle with insects the woodpecker has helpful
assistance from many other bird families. Though the woodpecker gives
general attention to hundreds of kinds of insects, he specializes on
those which injure the tree internally,--which require a surgical
operation to obtain. He is a distinguished specialist; the instruments
for tree-surgery are intrusted to his keeping, and with these he each
year performs innumerable successful surgical operations upon our
friends the trees.
Woodpeckers are as widely distributed as forests,--just how many to
the square mile no one knows. Some localities are blessed with a
goodly number, made up of representatives from three or four of our
twenty-four woodpecker species. Forest, shade, and orchard trees
receive their impartial attention. The annual saving from their
service is enormous. Although this cannot be estimated, it can hardly
be overstated.
A single borer may kill a tree; so, too, may a few beetles; while a
small number of weevils will injure and stunt a tree so that it is
left an easy victim for other insects. Borers, beetles, and weevils
are among the worst enemies of trees. They multiply with astounding
rapidity and annually kill millions of scattered trees. Annually, too,
there are numerous outbreaks of beetles, whose depredations extend
over hundreds and occasionally over thousands of acres. Caterpillars,
moths, and saw-flies are exceedingly injurious tree-pests, but they
damage the outer parts of the tree. Both they and their eggs are
easily accessible to many kinds of birds, including the woodpeckers;
but borers, beetles, and weevils live and deposit their eggs in the
very vitals of the tree. In the tree's vitals, protected by a heavy
barrier of wood or bark, they are secure from the beaks and claws of
all birds except Dr. Woodpecker, the chief surgeon of the forest.
About the only opportunity that other birds have to feed upon borers
and beetles is during the brief time they occupy in emerging from the
tree that they have killed, in their flight to some live tree, and
during their brief exposure while boring into it.
Beetles live and move in swarms, and, according to their numbers,
concentrate their attack upon a single tree or upon many trees. Most
beetles are one of a dozen species of _Dendroctonus_, which means
"tree-killer." Left in undisturbed possession of a tree, many mother
beetles may have half a million descendants in a single season.
Fortunately for the forest, Dr. Woodpecker, during his ceaseless round
of inspection and service, generally discovers infested trees. If one
woodpecker is not equal to the situation, many are concentrated at
this insect-breeding place; and here they remain until the last
dweller in darkness is reached and devoured. Thus most beetle
outbreaks are prevented. Now and then all the conditions are favorable
for the beetles, or the woodpecker may be persecuted and lose some of
his family; so that, despite his utmost efforts, he fails to make the
rounds of his forest, and the result is an outbreak of insects, with
wide depredations. So important are these birds that the shooting of a
single one may allow insects to multiply and waste acres of forest.
During the periods in which the insects are held in check the
woodpecker ranges through the forest, inspecting tree after tree. Many
times, during their tireless rounds of search and inspection, I have
followed them for hours. On one occasion in the mountains of Colorado
I followed a Batchelder woodpecker through a spruce forest all day
long. Both of us had a busy day. He inspected eight hundred and
twenty-seven trees, most of which were spruce or lodge-pole pine.
Although he moved quickly, he was intensely concentrated, was
systematic, and apparently did the inspection carefully. The forest
was a healthy one and harbored only straggling insects. Now and then
he picked up an isolated insect from a limb or took an egg-cluster
from a break in the bark on a trunk. Only two pecking operations were
required. On another occasion I watched a hairy woodpecker spend more
than three days upon one tree-trunk; this he pecked full of holes and
from its vitals he dragged more than a gross of devouring grubs. In
this case not only was the beetle colony destroyed but the tree
survived.
Woodpecker holes commonly are shallow, except in dead trees. Most of
the burrowing or boring insects which infest living trees work in the
outermost sapwood, just beneath the bark, or in the inner bark. Hence
the doctor does not need to cut deeply. In most cases his peckings in
the wood are so shallow that no scar or record is found. Hence a tree
might be operated on by him a dozen times in a season, and still not
show a scar when split or sawed into pieces. Most of his peckings
simply penetrate the bark, and on living trees this epidermis scales
off; thus in a short time all traces of his feast-getting are
obliterated. I have, however, in dissecting and studying fallen trees,
found a number of deep holes in their trunks which woodpeckers had
made years before the trees came to their death. In one instance, as I
have related in "The Story of a Thousand-Year Pine" in "Wild Life on
the Rockies," a deep oblong hole was pecked in a pine nearly eight
hundred years before it died. The hole filled with pitch and was
overgrown with bark and wood.
[Illustration: WOODPECKER HOLES IN A PINE INJURED BY LIGHTNING]
Woodpeckers commonly nest in a dead limb or trunk, a number of feet
from the ground. Here, in the heart of things, they excavate a
moderately roomy nest. It is common for many woodpeckers to peck out a
deep hole in a dead tree for individual shelter during the winter.
Generally neither nest nor winter lodging is used longer than a
season. The abandoned holes are welcomed as shelters and
nesting-places by many birds that prefer wooden-walled houses but
cannot themselves construct them. Chickadees and bluebirds often nest
in them. Screech owls frequently philosophize within these retreats.
On bitter cold nights these holes shelter and save birds of many
species. One autumn day, while watching beneath a pine, I saw fifteen
brown nuthatches issue from a woodpecker's hole in a dead limb. Just
what they were doing inside I cannot imagine; the extraordinary number
that had gathered therein made the incident so unusual that for a
long time I hesitated to tell it. However, early one autumn, Mr. Frank
M. Chapman climbed up the mountainside to see me, and, while resting
on the way up, he beheld twenty-seven nuthatches emerge from a hole in
a pine.
By tapping against dead tree-trunks I have often roused Mother
Woodpecker from her nest. Thrusting out her head from a hole far
above, she peered down with one eye and comically tilted her head to
discover the cause of the disturbance. With long nose and head tilted
to one side, she had both a storky and a philosophical appearance. The
woodpecker, more than any other bird of my acquaintance, at times
actually appears to need only a pair of spectacles upon his nose in
order fully to complete his attitude and expression of wisdom.
The downy woodpecker, the smallest member of a family of twenty-four
distinguished species, is the honored one. He is a confiding little
fellow and I have often accompanied him on his daily rounds. He does
not confine his attacks to the concealed enemies of the trees, but
preys freely upon caterpillars and other enemies which feast upon
their leaves and bloom. He appears most content close to the haunts of
man and spends much of his time caring for orchards and cleaning up
the shade trees. One morning in Missouri a downy alighted against the
base of an apple tree within a few feet of where I was standing. He
arrived with an undulating flight and swept in sideways toward the
trunk, as though thrown. Spat! he struck. For a moment he stuck
motionless, then he began to sidle round and up the trunk. Every now
and then he tapped with his bill or else stopped to peer into a
bark-cavity. He devoured an insect egg-cluster, a spider, and a beetle
of some kind before ascending to the first limb.
Just below the point of a limb's attachment he edged about, giving the
tree-trunk a rattling patter of taps with his bill. He was sounding
for something. Presently a spot appeared to satisfy him. Adjusting
himself, he rained blows with his pick-axe bill upon this, tilting his
head and directing the strokes with an apparently automatic action,
now and then giving a side swipe with his bill, probably to tear out
a splinter or throw off a chip. In six minutes his prey was evidently
in sight. Then he enlarged the hole and slightly deepened it
vertically. Pausing, he thrust his head into the hole and his bill
into a cavity beyond. With a backward tug he pulled his head out, then
his bill, and at last his extended tongue with a grub impaled on its
barbed point. This grub was dragged from the bottom of a crooked
gallery at a point more than three inches beyond the bottom of the
pecked hole. A useful bread-getting tool, this tongue of his,--a
flexible, extensible spear.
In another tree he uncovered a feast of ants and their eggs. Once a
grasshopper alighted against another tree-trunk up which he was
climbing. Downy seized him instantly. In one tree-top he consumed an
entire tent-caterpillar colony. In four hours he examined the trunks,
larger limbs, and many of the smaller ones of one hundred and
thirty-eight apple trees. In this time he made twenty-two excavations,
five of which were large ones. Among the insects devoured were
beetles, ants, their eggs and their aphids, a grasshopper, a moth or
two, and a colony of caterpillars. I followed him closely, and
frequently was within a few feet of him. Often I saw his eyes, or
rather one eye at a time; and a number of times I imagined him about
to look round and with merry laugh fly away, for he frequently acted
like a happy child who is closely watching you while all the time
merrily pretending not to see you. Yet, in all those four hours, he
did not do a single thing which showed that he knew of my nearness or
even of my existence!
Examining each tree in turn, he moved down a long row and at the end
flew without the slightest pause to the first tree in the next row.
From here he examined a line of trees diagonally across the orchard to
the farther corner. Here he followed along the outside row until he
flew away. The line of his inspection, from the time I first saw him
until he flew away, formed a big letter "N."
During a wind-storm in a pine forest a dead tree fell near me and a
flying limb knocked a downy, stunned, to the earth, by my feet. On
reviving in my hands, he showed but little excitement, and when my
hands opened he pushed himself off as though to dive to the earth; but
he skimmed and swung upward, landing against a tree-trunk about twenty
feet distant. Up this he at once began to skate and sidle, exploring
away as though nothing had happened and I were only a stump.
Little Boy Grizzly
Little Boy Grizzly
One day, while wandering in the pine woods on the slope of Mt. Meeker,
I came upon two young grizzly bears. Though they dodged about as
lively as chickens, I at last cornered them in a penlike pocket of
fallen trees.
Getting them into a sack was one of the liveliest experiences I ever
had. Though small and almost starved, these little orphans proceeded
to "chew me up" after the manner of big grizzlies, as is told of them
in books. After an exciting chase and tussle, I would catch one and
thrust him into the sack. In resisting, he would insert his claws into
my clothes, or thrust them through the side of the sack; then, while I
was trying to tear him loose, or to thrust him forcibly in, he would
lay hold of a finger, or take a bite in my leg. Whenever he bit, I at
once dropped him, and then all began over again.
Their mother had been killed a few days before I found them; so, of
course, they were famished and in need of a home; but so bitterly did
they resist my efforts that I barely succeeded in taking them. Though
hardly so large as a collie when he is at his prettiest, they were
nimble athletes.
At last I started home, the sack over my shoulder, with these lively
_Ursus horribilis_ in the bottom of it. Their final demonstration was
not needed to convince me of the extraordinary power of their jaws.
Nevertheless, while going down a steep slope, one managed to bite into
my back through sack and clothes, so effectively that I responded with
a yell. Then I fastened the sack at the end of a long pole, which I
carried across my shoulder, and I was able to travel the remainder of
the distance to my cabin without another attack in the rear.
Of course the youngsters did not need to be taught to eat. I simply
pushed their noses down into a basin of milk, and the little red
tongues at once began to ply; then raw eggs and bread were dropped
into the basin. There was no hesitation between courses; they simply
gobbled the food as long as I kept it before them.
Jenny and Johnny were pets before sundown. Though both were alert,
Johnny was the wiser and the more cheerful of the two. He took
training as readily as a collie or shepherd-dog, and I have never seen
any dog more playful. All bears are keen of wit, but he was the
brightest one of the wild folk that I have ever known. He grew
rapidly, and ate me almost out of supplies. We were intimate friends
in less than a month, and I spent much time playing and talking with
him. One of the first things I taught him was, when hungry, to stand
erect with arms extended almost horizontally, with palms forward. I
also taught him to greet me in this manner.
One day, after two weeks with me, he climbed to the top of a pole
fence to which he was chained. Up there he had a great time; he
perched, gazed here and there, pranced back and forth, and finally
fell off. His chain tangled and caught. For a few seconds he dangled
in the air by the neck, then slipped through his collar and galloped
off up the mountainside and quickly disappeared in the woods. I
supposed he was gone for good. Although I followed for several hours,
I did not even catch sight of him.
This little boy had three days of runaway life, and then concluded to
return. Hunger drove him back. I saw him coming and went to meet him;
but kept out of sight until he was within twenty feet, then stepped
into view. Apparently a confused or entangled mental condition
followed my appearance. His first impulse was to let me know that he
was hungry by standing erect and outstretching his arms; this he
started hastily to do.
In the midst of this performance, it occurred to him that if he wanted
anything to eat he must hurry to me; so he interrupted his first
action, and started to carry his second into instant effect. These
incomplete proceedings interrupted and tripped one another three or
four times in rapid succession. Though he tumbled about in comic
confusion while trying to do two things at once, it was apparent
through all that his central idea was to get something to eat.
[Illustration: JOHNNY AND JENNY]
And this, as with all boys, was his central idea much of the time. I
did not find anything that he would not eat. He simply gobbled
scraps from the table,--mountain sage, rhubarb, dandelion, and apples.
Of course, being a boy, he liked apples best of all.
If I approached him with meat and honey upon a plate and with an apple
in my pocket, he would smell the apple and begin to dance before me,
ignoring the eatables in sight. Instantly, on permission, he would
clasp me with both fore paws and thrust his nose into the apple
pocket. Often, standing between him and Jenny, I alternately fed each
a bit. A few times I broke the regular order and gave Jenny two bits
in succession. At this Johnny raged, and usually ended by striking
desperately at me; I never flinched, and the wise little rogue made it
a point each time to miss me by an inch or two. A few other people
tried this irritating experiment with him, but he hit them every time.
However, I early tried to prevent anything being done that teased or
irritated him. Visitors did occasionally tease him, and frequently
they fed the two on bad-temper-producing knickknacks.
Occasionally the two quarreled, but not more frequently than two
ordinary children; and these quarrels were largely traceable to
fight-producing food mixtures. Anyway, bears will maintain a better
disposition with a diet of putrid meat, snakes, mice, and weeds than
upon desserts of human concoction.
Naturally bears are fun-loving and cheerful; they like to romp and
play. Johnny played by the hour. Most of the time he was chained to a
low, small shed that was built for his accommodation. Scores of times
each day he covered all the territory that could be traversed while he
was fastened with a twelve-foot chain. Often he skipped back and forth
in a straight line for an hour or more. These were not the restless,
aimless movements of the caged tiger, but those of playful, happy
activity. It was a pleasure to watch this eager play; in it he would
gallop to the outer limit of his chain, then, reversing his legs
without turning his body, go backward with a queer, lively hippety-hop
to the other end, then gallop forward again. He knew the length of his
chain to an inch. No matter how wildly he rushed after some
bone-stealing dog, he was never jerked off his feet by forgetting his
limitations.
He and Scotch, my collie, were good friends and jolly playmates. In
their favorite play Scotch tried to take a bone which Johnny guarded;
this brought out from both a lively lot of feinting, dodging,
grabbing, and striking. Occasionally they clinched, and when this
ended, Johnny usually tried for a good bite or two on Scotch's shaggy
tail. Scotch appeared always to have in mind that the end of Johnny's
nose was sensitive, and he landed many a good slap on this spot.
Apparently, Johnny early appreciated the fact that I would not tease
him, and also that I was a master who must be obeyed. One day,
however, he met with a little mishap, misjudged things, and endeavored
to make it lively for me. I had just got him to the point where he
enjoyed a rocking-chair. In this chair he sat up like a little man.
Sometimes his fore paws lay awkwardly in his lap, but more often each
rested on an arm of the big chair. He found rocking such a delight
that it was not long until he learned to rock himself. This brought
on the mishap. He had grown over-confident, and one day was rocking
with great enthusiasm. Suddenly, the big rocker, little man and all,
went over backward. Though standing by, I was unable to save him, and
did not move. Seeing his angry look when he struck the floor, and
guessing his next move, I leaped upon the table. Up he sprang, and
delivered a vicious blow that barely missed, but which knocked a piece
out of my trousers.
Apparently no other large animal has such intense curiosity as the
grizzly. An object in the distance, a scent, a sound, or a trail, may
arouse this, and for a time overcome his intense and wary vigilance.
In satisfying this curiosity he will do unexpected and apparently bold
things. But the instant the mystery is solved he is himself again, and
may run for dear life from some situation into which his curiosity has
unwittingly drawn him. An unusual noise behind Johnny's shed would
bring him out with a rush, to determine what it was. If not at once
satisfied as to the cause, he would put his fore paws on the top of
the shed and peer over in the most eager and inquiring manner
imaginable. Like a scout, he spied mysterious and dim objects afar. If
a man, a dog, or a horse, appeared in the distance, he quickly
discovered the object, and at once stood erect, with fore paws drawn
up, until he had a good look at it. The instant he made out what it
was, he lost interest in it. At all times he was vigilant to know what
was going on about him.
He was like a boy in his fondness for water. Usually, when unchained
and given the freedom of the place, he would spend much of the time in
the brook, rolling, playing, and wading. He and I had a few
foot-races, and usually, in order to give me a better chance, we ran
down hill. In a two-hundred-yard dash he usually paused three or four
times and waited for me to catch up, and I was not a slow biped,
either.
The grizzly, though apparently awkward and lumbering, is really one of
the most agile of beasts. I constantly marveled at Johnny's lightness
of touch, or the deftness of movement of his fore paws. With but one
claw touching it, he could slide a coin back and forth on the floor
more rapidly and lightly than I could. He would slide an eggshell
swiftly along without breaking it. Yet by using but one paw, he could,
without apparent effort, overturn rocks that were heavier than
himself.
One day, while he slept in the yard, outstretched in the sun, I opened
a large umbrella and put it over him, and waited near for him to wake
up. By and by the sleepy eyes half opened, but without a move he
closed them and slept again. Presently he was wide awake, making a
quiet study of the strange thing over him, but except to roll his
eyes, not a move did he make. Then a puff of wind gave sudden movement
to the umbrella, rolling it over a point or two. At this he leaped to
his feet, terribly frightened, and made a dash to escape this
mysterious monster. But, as he jumped, the wind whirled the umbrella,
and plump into it he landed. An instant of desperate clawing, and he
shook off the wrecked umbrella and fled in terror. A minute or two
later I found him standing behind the house, still frightened and
trembling. When I came up and spoke to him, he made three or four
lively attempts to bite my ankles. Plainly, he felt that I had played
a mean and uncalled-for trick upon him. I talked to him for some time
and endeavored to explain the matter to him.
A sudden movement of a new or mysterious object will usually frighten
any animal. On more than one occasion people have taken advantage of
this characteristic of wild beasts, and prevented an attack upon
themselves. In one instance I unconsciously used it to my advantage.
In the woods, one day, as I have related elsewhere, two wolves and
myself unexpectedly met. With bared teeth they stood ready to leap
upon me. Needing something to keep up my courage and divert my
thoughts, it occurred to me to snap a picture of them. This
effectively broke the spell, for when the kodak door flew open they
wheeled and fled.
Autumn came, and I was to leave for a forestry tour. The only man that
I could persuade to stay at my place for the winter was one who
neither understood nor sympathized with my wide-awake and aggressive
young grizzly. Realizing that the man and the bear would surely clash,
and perhaps to the man's disadvantage, I settled things once and for
all by sending Johnny to the Denver Zoo.
He was seven months old when we parted, and apparently as much
attached to me as any dog to master. I frequently had news of him, but
let two years go by before I allowed myself the pleasure of visiting
him. He was lying on the ground asleep when I called, while around him
a number of other bears were walking about. He was no longer a boy
bear, but a big fellow. In my eagerness to see him I forgot to be
cautious and, climbing to the top of the picket fence, leaped into the
pen, calling, "Hello, Johnny!" as I leaped, and repeating this
greeting as I landed on the ground beside him. He jumped up, fully
awake, and at once recognized me. Instantly, he stood erect, with both
arms extended, and gave a few happy grunts of joy and by way of
greeting.
I talked to him for a little while and patted him as I talked. Then I
caught a fore paw in my hand and we hopped and pranced about as in
old times. A yell from the outside brought me to my senses.
Instinctively I glanced about for a way of escape, though I really did
not feel that I was in danger. We were, however, the observed of all
observers, and I do not know which throng was staring with greater
interest and astonishment,--the bears in the pen or the spectators on
the outside.
Alone with a Landslide
Alone with a Landslide
Realizing the importance of traveling as lightly as possible during my
hasty trip through the Uncompahgre Mountains, I allowed myself to
believe that the golden days would continue. Accordingly I set off
with no bedding, with but little food, and without even snowshoes. A
few miles up the trail, above Lake City, I met a prospector coming
down and out of these mountains for the winter. "Yes," he said, "the
first snow usually is a heavy one, and I am going out now for fear of
being snowed-in for the winter." My imagination at once pictured the
grand mountains deeply, splendidly covered with snow, myself by a
camp-fire in a solemn primeval forest without food or bedding, a
camp-bird on a near-by limb sympathizing with me in low, confiding
tones, the snow waist-deep and mountains-wide. Then I dismissed the
imaginary picture of winter and joyfully climbed the grand old
mountains amid the low and leafless aspens and the tall and richly
robed firs.
I was impelled to try to make this mountain realm a National Forest
and felt that sometime it would become a National Park. The wonderful
reports of prospectors about the scenery of this region, together with
what I knew of it from incomplete exploration, eloquently urged this
course upon me. My plan was to make a series of photographs, from
commanding heights and slopes, that would illustrate the forest wealth
and the scenic grandeur of this wonderland. In the centre Uncompahgre
Peak rose high, and by girdling it a little above the timber I
obtained a number of the desired photographs, and then hurried from
height to height, taking other pictures of towering summits or their
slopes below that were black and purpling with impressive, pathless
forests.
The second evening I went into camp among some picturesque trees upon
a skyline at an altitude of eleven thousand feet above the tides.
While gathering wood for a fire, I paused to watch the moon, a great
globe of luminous gold, rise strangely, silently into the mellow haze
of autumn night. For a moment on the horizon it paused to peep from
behind a crag into a scattered group of weird storm-beaten trees on a
ridge before me, then swiftly floated up into lonely, misty space.
Just before I lay down for the night, I saw a cloud-form in the dim,
low distance that was creeping up into my moonlit world of mountains.
Other shadowy forms followed it. A little past midnight I was awakened
by the rain falling gently, coldly upon my face. As I stood shivering
with my back to the fire, there fell an occasional feathery flake of
snow.
Had my snowshoes been with me, a different lot of experiences would
have followed. With them I should have stayed in camp and watched the
filmy flakes form their beautiful white feathery bog upon the earth,
watched robes, rugs, and drapery decorate rocks and cliffs, or the fir
trees come out in pointed, spearhead caps, or the festoons form upon
the limbs of dead and lifeless trees,--crumbling tree-ruins in the
midst of growing forest life. To be without food or snowshoes in
faraway mountain snows is about as serious as to be adrift in a
lifeboat without food or oars in the ocean's wide waste. In a few
minutes the large, almost pelt-like flakes were falling thick and
fast. Hastily I put the two kodaks and the treasured films into
water-tight cases, pocketed my only food, a handful of raisins,
adjusted hatchet and barometer, then started across the strange, snowy
mountains through the night.
The nearest and apparently the speediest way out lay across the
mountains to Ridgway; the first half of this fifteen miles was through
a rough section that was new to me. After the lapse of several years
this night expedition appears a serious one, though at the time it
gave me no concern that I recall. How I ever managed to go through
that black, storm-filled night without breaking my neck amid the
innumerable opportunities for accident, is a thing that I cannot
explain.
I descended a steep, rugged slope for a thousand feet or more with my
eyes useless in the eager falling of mingled rain and snow. Nothing
could be seen, but despite slow, careful going a dead limb
occasionally prodded me. With the deliberation of a blind man I
descended the long, steep, broken, slippery slope, into the bottom of
a cañon. Now and then I came out upon a jumping-off place; here I felt
before and below with a slender staff for a place to descend;
occasionally no bottom could be found, and upon this report I would
climb back a short distance and search out a way.
Activity kept me warm, although the cold rain drenched me and the
slipperiness of slopes and ledges never allowed me to forget the law
of falling bodies. At last a roaring torrent told me that I was at the
bottom of a slope. Apparently I had come down by the very place where
the stream contracted and dashed into a deep, narrow box cañon. Not
being able to go down stream or make a crossing at this point, I
turned and went up the stream for half a mile or so, where I crossed
the swift, roaring water in inky darkness on a fallen Douglas
spruce,--for such was the arrangement of its limbs and the feel of the
wood in its barkless trunk, that these told me it was a spruce, though
I could see nothing. During this night journey I put myself both in
feeling and in fact in a blind man's place,--the best lesson I ever
had to develop deliberation and keenness of touch.
The next hour after crossing the stream I spent in climbing and
descending a low wooded ridge with smooth surface and gentle slopes.
Then there was one more river, the Little Cimarron, to cross. An
Engelmann spruce, with scaly, flaky bark, that had stood perfectly
perpendicular for a century or two but had recently been hurled to the
horizontal, provided a long, vibrating bridge for me to cross on. Once
across, I started to climb the most unstable mountain that I had ever
trodden.
[Illustration: NEAR THE TOP OF MT. COXCOMB]
Mt. Coxcomb, up which I climbed, is not one of the "eternal hills" but
a crumbling, dissolving, tumbling, transient mountain. Every hard rain
dissolves, erodes, and uncovers the sides of this mountain as if it
were composed of sugar, paste, and stones. It is made up of a confused
mingling of parts and masses of soluble and flinty materials. Here
change and erosion run riot after every rain. There is a great falling
to pieces; gravity, the insatiable, is temporarily satisfied, and the
gulches feast on earthy materials, while the river-channel is glutted
with crushed cliffs, acres of earth, and the débris of ruined forests.
Here and there these are flung together in fierce confusion.
On this bit of the wild world's stage are theatrical lightning changes
of scenes,--changes that on most mountains would require ten thousand
years or more. It is a place of strange and fleeting landscapes; the
earth is ever changing like the sky. In wreathed clouds a great cliff
is born, stands out bold and new in the sunshine and the blue. The
Storm King comes, the thunders echo among crags and cañons, the broken
clouds clear away, and the beautiful bow bends above a ruined cliff.
Here and there strange, immature monsters are struggling to rise,--to
free themselves from the earth. Occasionally a crag is brought forth
full grown during one operation of gravity, erosion, and storm, and
left upon a foundation that would raise corn but never sustain cliff
or crag. Scattered monoliths at times indulge in a contest of leaning
the farthest from the perpendicular without falling. The potato-patch
foundations of these in time give way, then gravity drags them head
foremost, or in broken installments, down the slope.
Among the forested slopes that I traversed there were rock-slides,
earthy glaciers, and leafless gulches with crumbling walls. Some of
these gulches extended from bottom to top of the mountain, while
others were digging their way. An occasional one had a temporary
ending against the bottom of a kingly cliff, whose short reign was
about to end as its igneous throne was disorganized and decomposed.
The storm and darkness continued as I climbed the mountain of
short-lived scenes,--a mountain so eagerly moving from its place in
the sky to a bed in the sea. The saturation had softened and
lubricated the surface; these sedimentary slopes had been made
restless by the rain.
I endeavored to follow up one of the ridges, but it was narrow and all
the pulpy places very slippery. Fearing to tumble off into the dark
unknown, I climbed down into a gully and up this made my way toward
the top. All my mountain experience told me to stay on the ridge and
not travel in darkness the way in which gravity flings all his spoils.
The clouds were low, and I climbed well up into them. The temperature
was cooler, and snow was whitening the earth. When I was well up to
the silver lining of the clouds, a gust of wind momentarily rent them,
and I stood amid snow-covered statuary,--leaning monoliths and
shattered minarets all weird and enchanting in the moonlight. A few
seconds later I was in darkness and snowstorm again.
The gulch steepened and apparently grew shallower. Occasionally a mass
of mud or a few small stones rolled from the sides of the gulch to my
feet and told that saturation was at work dissolving and loosening
anchorages and foundations. It was time to get out of the gulch. While
I was making haste to do so, there came a sudden tremor instantly
followed by an awful crash and roar. Then _r-r-rip! z-zi-ip!
s-w-w-r-r-ip!_ A bombardment of flying, bounding, plunging rocks from
an overturned cliff above was raking my gulch. Nothing could be seen,
but several slaps in the face from dashes of snow which these rock
missiles disturbed and displaced was expressively comprehensive.
As this brief bombardment ceased, the ominous sounds from above
echoing among the cliffs shouted warning of an advancing landslide.
This gave a little zest to my efforts to get out of the gulch; too
much perhaps, for my scramble ended in a slip and a tumble back to the
bottom. In the second attempt a long, uncovered tree-root reached down
to me in the darkness, and with the aid of this I climbed out of the
way of the avalanche. None too soon, however. With quarreling and
subdued grinding sounds the rushing flood of landslide material went
past, followed by an offensive smell.
While I paused listening to the monster groan and grind his way
downward, the cliffs fired a few more rock missiles in my direction.
One struck a crag beside me. The explosive contact gave forth a blast
of sputtering sparks and an offensive, rotten-egg smell. A flying
fragment of this shattered missile struck my left instep, breaking
one of the small bones.
Fortunately my foot was resting in the mud when struck. When
consciousness came back to me I was lying in the mud and snow,
drenched, mud-bespattered, and cold. The rain and snow had almost
ceased to fall, and while I was bandaging my foot the pale light of
day began to show feebly through heavy clouds. If that luminous place
is in the eastern horizon, then I have lost my sense of direction. An
appeal to the compass brought no consolation, for it said laconically,
"Yes, you are turned around now, even though you never were before."
The accuracy of the compass was at once doubted,--but its decree was
followed.
Slowly, painfully, the slippery, snowy steeps were scaled beneath a
low, gloomy sky. My plan was to cross the north shoulder of Mt.
Coxcomb and then down slope and gulch descend to the deeply filled
alluvium Uncompahgre valley and the railroad village of Ridgway. With
the summit only a few feet above, the wall became so steep and the
hold so insecure that it appeared best to turn back lest I be
precipitated from the cliff. The small, hard points in the sedimentary
wall had been loosened in their settings by the rain. Climbing this
wall with two good feet in a dry time would be adventurous pastime.
While I was flattened against the wall, descending with greatest
caution, there came a roaring crash together with a trembling of earth
and air. An enormous section of the opposite side of the mass that I
was on had fallen away, and the oscillations of the cliff nearly
hurled me to the rock wreckage at the bottom of the wall.
On safe footing at last, I followed along the bottom of the summit
cliff and encountered the place from which the rocks had been hurled
at me in the darkness and where a cliff had fallen to start the slide.
It was evident that the storm waters had wrecked the foundation of the
cliff. Ridges and gullies of the Bad Land's type fluted the slope and
prevented my traveling along close to the summit at right angles to
the slope. There appeared no course for me but to descend to the
Little Cimarron River. Hours were required for less than two miles of
painful though intensely interesting travel.
It was a day of landslides,--just as there are, in the heights, days
of snow slides. This excessive saturation after months of drought left
cohesion and adhesion but slight hold on these strange sedimentary
mixtures. The surface tore loose and crawled; cliffs tumbled. After
counting the crash and echoing roar of forty-three fallen cliffs, I
ceased counting and gave more attention to other demonstrations.
On the steeps, numerous fleshy areas crawled, slipped, and crept. The
front of a long one had brought up against a rock ledge while the
blind rear of the mass pressed powerfully forward, crumpling, folding,
and piling the front part against the ledge. At one place an enormous
rocky buttress had tumbled over. Below, the largest piece of this, a
wreck in a mass of mud, floated slowly down the slope in a shallow,
moderately tilted gulch. This buttress had been something of an
impounding, retaining wall against which loosened, down-drifting
materials had accumulated into a terrace. The terrace had long been
adorned with a cluster of tall spruces whose presence produced
vegetable mould and improved soil conditions.
On the falling-away of this buttress the tree-plumed terrace commenced
to sag and settle. The soil-covered débris was well roped together and
reinforced with tree-roots. When I came along, these tall trees, so
long bravely erect, were leaning, drooping forward. Their entire
foundation had slipped several feet and was steadily crowding out over
the pit from which gravity had dragged the buttress. The trees, with
their roots wedged in crevices, were anchored to bed-rock and clinging
on for dear life. Now and then a low, thudding, earth-muffled sound
told of strained or ruptured roots. The foundation steadily gave way
while the trees drooped dangerously forward. United on the heights,
the brave trees had struggled through the seasons, and united they
would go down together. They had fixed and fertilized the spoil from
the slopes above. This spoil had been held and made to produce, and
prevented from going down to clog the channel of the Little Cimarron
or making with the waters the long, sifting, shifting journey, joining
at last the lifeless soil deposits in the delta tongues of the
Colorado. But the steadfast trees, with all their power to check
erosion and create soil, were to fall before the overwhelming
elements.
Farther and farther the unsupported and water-lubricated foundation
slipped; more and more the trees leaned and drooped forward; until
gravity tore all loose and plunged the trees head foremost into the
pit, crushing down upon tumbled tons of rocks, soil, matted mud, and
roots,--all the wreckage of the time-formed, tree-crowned terrace.
The slide that narrowly missed me in the night was a monster one and
grew in magnitude as it brutally rooted and gouged its way downward.
After descending more than half a mile it struck an enormous dome
rock, which stayed a small part of it, while the remainder, deflected,
made an awesome plunge and engulfed a small, circular grove in an
easily sloping grassy plot. Most of the towering spruces were thrown
down and deeply buried beneath mud, smashed cliffs, and the mangled
forms of trees from up the slope. A few trees on the margin of the
grove were left standing, but they suffered from cruel bruises and
badly torn bark.
On the farther side of the grove a number of the trees were bent
forward but only partly buried; with heads and shoulders out, they
were struggling to extricate themselves, and now and then one shook an
arm free from the débris. Over the place where a few hours before tall
tree plumes had stood in the sky, a fierce confusion of slide wreckage
settled and tumbled to pieces while the buried and half-buried trees
whispered, murmured, and sighed as they struggled to rise.
Out with nature trees are supposed to stand in one place all their
lives, but one of the most interesting movements of this elemental day
was the transplanting, by gravity, of an entire clump of tall old
firs. Water released these trees, and they appeared to enjoy being
dragged by gravity to a new home and setting. I was resting my foot
and watching a gigantic monolithic stone settle and come down
gracefully, when a tree-clump on the skyline just beyond appeared to
move forward several yards, then make a stop. While I was trying to
decide whether they really had moved or not, they moved forward again
with all their earthly claims, a few square rods of surface together
with their foundations beneath. With all tops merrily erect they slid
forward, swerving right and left along the line of least resistance,
and finally came to rest in a small unclaimed flat in which no doubt
they grew up with the country.
The many-sized slides of that weird day showed a change of position
varying from a few feet to a mile. Several ploughed out into the
Little Cimarron and piled its channel more than full of spoils from
the slopes. Through this the river fought its way, and from it the
waters flowed richly laden with earthy matter.
The great changes which took place on Mt. Coxcomb in a few hours were
more marked and extensive than the alterations in most mountains since
the Sphinx began to watch the shifting, changing sands by the Nile.
By mid-afternoon the air grew colder and the snow commenced to deepen
upon the earth. Bedraggled and limping, I made slow progress down the
slope. Just at twilight a mother bear and her two cubs met me. They
probably were climbing up to winter-quarters. I stood still to let
them pass. When a few yards distant the bear rose up and looked at me
with a combination of curiosity, astonishment, and perhaps contempt.
With _Woof! Woof!_ more in a tone of disgust than of fear or anger,
she rushed off, followed by the cubs, and the three disappeared in the
darkening, snow-filling forest aisles.
The trees were snow-laden and dripping, but on and on I went. Years of
training had given me great physical endurance, and this, along with a
peculiar mental attitude that Nature had developed in me from being
alone in her wild places at all seasons, gave me a rare trust in her
and an enthusiastic though unconscious confidence in the ultimate
success of whatever I attempted to accomplish out of doors.
About two o'clock in the morning I at last descended to the river. The
fresh débris on my side of the stream so hampered traveling that it
became necessary to cross. Not finding any fallen-tree bridge, I
started to wade across in a wide place that I supposed to be shallow.
Midway and hip-deep in the swift water, I struck the injured foot
against a boulder, momentarily flinching, and the current swirled me
off my feet. After much struggling and battling with the turbulent
waters, I succeeded in reaching the opposite shore. This immersion did
not make me any wetter than I was or than I had been for hours, but
the water chilled me; so I hurried forward as rapidly as possible to
warm up.
After a few steps the injured leg suddenly became helpless, and I
tumbled down in the snow. Unable to revive the leg promptly and being
very cold from my icy-water experience, I endeavored to start a fire.
Everything was soaked and snow-covered; the snow was falling and the
trees dripping water; I groped about on my hands and one knee,
dragging the paralyzed leg; all these disadvantages, along with
chattering teeth and numb fingers, made my fire-starting attempts a
series of failures.
That night of raw, primitive life is worse in retrospect than was the
real one. Still I was deadly in earnest at the time. Twenty-four
hours of alertness and activity in the wilds, swimming and wading a
torrent of ice-water at two o'clock in the morning, tumbling out into
the wet, snowy wilds miles from food and shelter, a crushed foot and a
helpless leg, the penetrating, clinging cold, and no fire, is going
back to nature about ten thousand years farther than it is desirable
to go. But I was not discouraged even for a moment, and it did not
occur to me to complain, though, as I look back now, the theory of
non-resistance appears to have been carried a trifle too far. At last
the fire blazed. After two hours beside it I went down the river
greatly improved. The snow was about fifteen inches deep.
[Illustration: COURT-HOUSE ROCK]
Shortly before daylight I felt that I was close to a trail I had
traveled, one that came to Cimarron near by Court-House Rock.
Recrossing the river on a fallen log, I lay down to sleep beneath a
shelving rock with a roaring fire before me, sleeping soundly and
deeply until the crash of an overturned cliff awakened me. Jumping to
my feet, I found the storm over with the clouds broken and drifting
back and forth in two strata as though undecided whether to go or
remain. Above a low, lazy cloud, I caught a glimpse of Turret-Top, and
turning, beheld Court-House Rock.
The foot gave no pain as I limped along the trail I had so often
followed. Now and then I turned to take a photograph. The stars and
the lights in the village were just appearing when I limped into the
surgeon's office in Ridgway.
The Maker of Scenery and Soil
The Maker of Scenery and Soil
During my first boyish exploring trip in the Rocky Mountains I was
impressed with the stupendous changes which the upper slope of these
mountains had undergone. In places were immense embankments and wild
deltas of débris that plainly had come from elsewhere. In other places
the rough edges of the cañons and ridges had been trimmed and
polished; their cliffs and projections were gone and their surfaces
had been swept clean of all loose material. Later, I tried vainly to
account for some cañon walls being trimmed and polished at the bottom
while their upper parts were jagged. In most cañons the height of the
polishings above the bottom was equal on both walls, with the upper
edge of the polish even or level for the entire length of the cañon.
In one cañon, in both floor and walls, were deep lateral scratches in
the rocks.
One day I found some polished boulders perched like driftwood on the
top of a polished rock dome; they were porphyry, while the dome was
flawless granite. They plainly had come from somewhere else. How they
managed to be where they were was too much for me. Mountain floods
were terrible but not wild enough in their fiercest rushes to do this.
Upon a mountainside across a gorge about two miles distant, and a
thousand feet above the perched boulders on the dome, I found a
porphyry outcrop; but this situation only added to my confusion. I did
not then know of the glacial period, or the actions of glaciers. It
was a delightful revelation when John Muir told me of these wonders.
Much of the earth's surface, together with most mountain-ranges, have
gone through a glacial period or periods. There is extensive and
varied evidence that the greater portion of the earth has been carved
and extensively changed by the Ice King. Substantial works, blurred
and broken records, and impressive ruins in wide array over the earth
show long and active possession by the Ice King, as eloquently as the
monumental ruins in the Seven Hills tell of their intense association
with man.
Both the northern and the southern hemispheres have had their heavy,
slow-going floods of ice that appear to have swept from the polar
world far toward the equator. During the great glacial period, which
may have lasted for ages, a mountainous flood of ice overspread
America from the north and extended far down the Mississippi Valley.
This ice may have been a mile or more in depth. It utterly changed the
topography and made a new earth. Lakes were filled and new ones made.
New landscapes were formed: mountains were rubbed down to plains,
morainal hills were built upon plains, and streams were moved bodily.
It is probable that during the last ice age the location and course of
both the Ohio and the Missouri Rivers were changed. Originally the
Missouri flowed east and north, probably emptying into a lake that had
possession of the Lake Superior territory. The Ice King deliberately
shoved this river hundreds of miles toward the south. The Ohio
probably had a similar experience. These rivers appear to mark the
"Farthest South" of the ice; their position probably was determined by
the ice. Had a line been traced on the map along the ragged edge and
front of the glacier at its maximum extension, this line would almost
answer for the present position of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers.
The most suggestive and revealing words concerning glaciers that I
have ever read are these of John Muir in "The Mountains of
California": "When we bear in mind that all the Sierra forests are
young, growing upon moraine soil recently deposited, and that the
flank of the range itself, with all its landscapes, is new-born,
recently sculptured, and brought to light of day from beneath the ice
mantle of the glacial winter, then a thousand lawless mysteries
disappear and broad harmonies take their places."
"A glacier," says Judge Junius Henderson, in the best definition that
I have heard, "is a body of ice originating in an area where the
annual accumulation of snow exceeds the dissipation, and moving
downward and outward to an area where dissipation exceeds
accumulation."
[Illustration: THE HALLETT GLACIER]
A glacier may move forward only a few feet in a year or it may move
several feet in a day. It may be only a few hundred feet in length,
or, as during the Ice Age, have an area of thousands of square miles.
The Arapahoe Glacier moves slowly, as do all small glaciers and some
large ones. One year's measured movement was 27.7 feet near the centre
and 11.15 near the edge. This, too, is about the average for one year,
and also an approximate movement for most small mountain glaciers. The
centre of the glacier, meeting less resistance than the edges,
commonly flows much more rapidly. The enormous Alaskan glaciers have a
much more rapid flow, many moving forward five or more feet a day.
A glacier is the greatest of eroding agents. It wears away the surface
over which it flows. It grinds mountains to dust, transports soil and
boulders, scoops out lake-basins, gives flowing lines to landscapes.
Beyond comprehension we are indebted to them for scenery and soil.
Glaciers, or ice rivers, make vast changes. Those in the Rocky
Mountains overthrew cliffs, pinnacles, and rocky headlands. These in
part were crushed and in part they became embedded in the front,
bottom, and sides of the ice. This rock-set front tore into the sides
and bottom of its channel--after it had made a channel!--with a
terrible, rasping, crushing, and grinding effect, forced irresistibly
forward by a pressure of untold millions of tons. Glaciers, large and
small, the world over, have like characteristics and influences. To
know one glacier will enable one to enjoy glaciers everywhere and to
appreciate the stupendous influence they have had upon the surface of
the earth.
They have planed down the surface and even reduced mountain-ridges to
turtle outlines. In places the nose of the glacier was thrust with
such enormous pressure against a mountainside that the ice was forced
up the slope which it flowed across and then descended on the opposite
side. Sustained by constant and measureless pressure, years of fearful
and incessant application of this weighty, flowing, planing, ploughing
sandpaper wore the mountain down. In time, too, the small
ragged-edged, V-shaped ravines became widened, deepened, and extended
into enormous U-shaped glaciated gorges.
Glaciers have gouged or scooped many basins in the solid rock. These
commonly are made at the bottom of a deep slope where the descending
ice bore heavily on the lever or against a reverse incline. The size
of the basin thus made is determined by the size, width, and weight of
the glacier and by other factors. In the Rocky Mountains these
excavations vary in size from a few acres to a few thousand. They
became lake-basins on the disappearance of the ice.
More than a thousand lakes of glacial origin dot the upper portions of
the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Most of these are above the altitude
of nine thousand feet, and the largest, Grand Lake, is three miles in
length. Landslides and silt have filled many of the old glacier lake
basins, and these, overgrown with grass and sedge, are called glacier
meadows.
Vast was the quantity of material picked up and transported by these
glaciers. Mountains were moved piecemeal, and ground to boulders,
pebbles, and rock-flour in the moving. In addition to the material
which the glacier gathered up and excavated, it also carried the
wreckage brought down by landslides and the eroded matter poured upon
it by streams from the heights. Most of the material which falls upon
the top of the upper end of the glacier ultimately works its way to
the bottom, where, with the other gathered material, it is pressed
against the bottom and sides and used as a cutting or grinding tool
until worn to a powder or pebbles.
Train-loads of débris often accumulate upon the top of the glacier. On
the lower course this often is a hundred feet or more above the
surface, and as the glacier descends and shrivels, enormous quantities
of this rocky débris fall off the sides and, in places, form enormous
embankments; these often closely parallel long stretches of the
glacier like river levees.
The large remainder of the material is carried to the end of the
glacier, where the melting ice unloads and releases it. This
accumulation, which corresponds to the delta of a river, is the
terminal moraine. For years the bulk of the ice may melt away at
about the same place; this accumulates an enormous amount of débris;
an advance of the ice may plough through this and repile it, or the
retreat of the ice or a changed direction of its flow may pile the
débris elsewhere and over wide areas. Many of these terminal moraines
are an array of broken embankments, small basin-like holes and smooth,
level spaces. The débris of these moraines embraces rock-flour,
gravel, pebbles, a few angular rock-masses, and enormous quantities of
many-sized boulders,--rocks rounded by the grind of the glacial mill.
Strange freight, of unknown age, these creeping ice rivers bring down.
One season the frozen carcass of a mountain sheep was taken from the
ice at the end of the Arapahoe Glacier. If this sheep fell into a
crevasse at the upper end of the glacier, its carcass probably had
been in the ice for more than a century. Human victims, too, have been
strangely handled by glaciers. It appears that in 1820 Dr. Hamil and a
party of climbers were struck by a snowslide on the slope of Mont
Blanc. One escaped with his life, while the others were swept down
into a crevasse and buried so deeply in the snow and ice that their
bodies could not be recovered. Scientists said that at the rate the
glacier was moving it would give up its dead after forty years. Far
down the mountain forty-one years afterward, the ice gave up its
victims. A writer has founded on this incident an interesting story,
in which the bodies are recovered in an excellent state of
preservation, and an old woman with sunken cheeks and gray hair clasps
the youthful body of her lover of long ago, the guide.
Where morainal débris covers thousands of acres, it is probable that
valuable mineral veins were in some cases covered, prospecting
prevented, and mineral wealth lost; but on the other hand, the erosion
done by the glacier, often cutting down several hundred feet, has in
many cases uncovered leads which otherwise probably would have been
left buried beyond search. Then, too, millions of dollars of placer
gold have been washed from moraines.
In addition to the work of making and giving the mountains flowing
lines of beauty, the glaciers added inconceivably to the richness of
the earth's resources by creating vast estates of soil. It is probable
that glaciers have supplied one half of the productive areas of the
earth with soil; the mills of the glaciers have ground as much
rock-flour--soil--for the earth as wind, frost, heat, and rain,--all
the weathering forces. This flour and other coarser glacial grindings
were quickly changed by the chemistry of Nature into plant-food,--the
staff of life for forests and flowers.
Glaciers have not only ground the soil but in many places have carried
this and spread it out hundreds of miles from the place where the
original raw rocks were obtained. Wind and water have done an enormous
amount of work sorting out the soil in moraines and, leaving the
boulders behind, this soil was scattered and sifted far and wide to
feed the hungry plant-life.
At last the Glacial Winter ended, and each year more snow melted and
evaporated than fell. Snow-line retreated up the slopes and finally
became broken, even in the heights. To-day, in the Rockies, there are
only a dozen or so small glaciers, mere fragments of the once great
ice cap which originally covered deeply all the higher places and
slopes, and extended unbroken for hundreds of miles, pierced strangely
with a few sharp peaks.
The small remaining glaciers in the Rocky Mountains lie in sheltered
basins or cirques in the summits and mostly above the altitude of
thirteen thousand feet. These are built and supplied by the winds
which carry and sweep snow to them from off thousands of acres of
treeless, barren summits. The present climate of these mountains is
very different from what it was ages ago. Then for a time the annual
snowfall was extremely heavy. Each year the sun and the wind removed
only a part of the snow which fell during the year. This icy remainder
was added to the left-over of preceding years until the accumulation
was of vast depth and weight.
On the summit slopes this snow appears to have been from a few hundred
to a few thousand feet deep. Softened from the saturation of melting
and compressed from its own weight, it became a stratum of ice. This
overlay the summit of the main ranges, and was pierced by only a few
of the higher, sharper peaks which were sufficiently steep to be
stripped of snow by snowslides and the wind.
The weight of this superimposed icy stratum was immense; it
was greater than the bottom layers could support. Ice is
plastic--rubbery--if sufficient pressure or weight be applied. Under
the enormous pressure the bottom layers started to crawl or flow from
beneath like squeezed dough. This forced mass moved outward and
downward in the direction of the least resistance,--down the slope.
Thus a glacier is conceived and born.
Numbers of these glaciers--immense serpents and tongues of
ice--extended down the slopes, in places miles beyond the line of
perpetual snow. Some of these were miles in length, a thousand or more
feet wide, and hundreds of feet deep, and they forced and crushed
their way irresistibly. It is probable they had a sustained,
continuous flow for centuries.
A glacier is one of the natural wonders of the world and well might
every one pay a visit to one of these great earth-sculpturers. The
time to visit a glacier is during late summer, when the snows of the
preceding winter are most completely removed from the surface. With
the snows removed, the beauty of the ice and its almost stratified
make-up are revealed. The snow, too, conceals the yawning
_bergschlunds_ and the dangerous, splendid crevasses. A visit to one
of these ponderous, patient, and effective monsters is not without
danger; concealed crevasses, or thinly covered icy caverns, or
recently deposited and insecurely placed boulders on the moraines are
potent dangers that require vigilance to avoid. However, the careful
explorer will find one of these places far safer than the city's
chaotic and crowded street.
[Illustration: A CREVASSE]
For the study of old glacier records few places can equal the Estes
Park district in Colorado. The Arapahoe, on Arapahoe Peak, Colorado,
is an excellent glacier to visit. It is characteristic and is easy of
access. It is close to civilization,--within a few miles of a
railroad,--is comprehensively situated, and is amid some of the
grandest scenery in the Rocky Mountains. It has been mapped and studied,
and its rate of movement and many other things concerning it are
accurately known. It is the abstract and brief chronicle of the Ice
Age, a key to all the glacier ways and secrets.
In the Arapahoe Glacier one may see the cirque in which the snow is
deposited or drifted by the wind; and the bergschlund-yawn--crack of
separation--made by glacier ice where it moves away from the névé or
snowy ice above. In walking over the ice in summer one may see or
descend into the crevasses. These deep, wide cracks, miniature cañons,
are caused by the ice flowing over inequalities in the surface. At the
end of this glacier one may see the terminal moraine,--a raw, muddy
pile of powdered, crushed, and rounded rocks. Farther along down the
slope one may see the lakes that were made, the rocks that were
polished, and the lateral moraine deposited by the glacier in its
bigger days,--times when the Ice King almost conquered the earth.
In the Rocky Mountains the soil and morainal débris were transported
only a few miles, while the Wisconsin and Iowa glaciers brought
thousands of acres of rich surfacing, now on the productive farms of
Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, from places hundreds of miles to the north
in Canada. In the Rocky Mountains most of the forests are growing in
soil or moraines that were ground and distributed by glaciers. Thus
the work of the glaciers has made the earth and the mountains far more
useful in addition to giving them gentler influences,--charming lakes
and flowing landscape lines. It is wonderful that the mighty worker
and earth-shaper, the Ice King, should have used snowflakes for
edge-tools, millstones, and crushing stamps!
To know the story of the Ice King--to be able to understand and
restore the conditions that made lakes and headlands, moraines and
fertile fields--will add mightily to the enjoyment of a visit to the
Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the coasts and mountains of Norway and New
England, Alaska's unrivaled glacier realm, or the extraordinary ice
sculpturing in the Yosemite National Park.
Edward Orton, Jr., formerly State Geologist of Ohio, who spent weeks
toiling over and mapping the Mills Moraine on the east slope of Long's
Peak, gave a glimpse of what one may feel and enjoy from nature
investigation in his closing remarks concerning this experience. He
said, "If one adds to the physical pleasures of mountaineering, the
intellectual delight of looking with the seeing eye, of explaining,
interpreting, and understanding the gigantic forces which have wrought
these wonders; if by these studies one's vision may be extended past
the sublime beauties of the present down through the dim ages of the
past until each carved and bastioned peak tells a romance above words;
if by communion with this greatness, one's soul is uplifted and
attuned into fuller accord with the great cosmic forces of which we
are the higher manifestation, then mountaineering becomes not a
pastime but an inspiration."
A Rainy Day at the Stream's Source
A Rainy Day at the Stream's Source
To spend a day in the rain at the source of a stream was an experience
I had long desired, for the behavior of the waters in collecting and
hurrying down slopes would doubtless show some of Nature's interesting
ways. On the Rockies no spot seemed quite so promising as the
watershed on which the St. Vrain made its start to the sea. This had
steep and moderate slopes, rock ledges, and deep soil; and about one
half of its five thousand acres was covered with primeval forest,
while the remainder had been burned almost to barrenness by a fierce
forest fire. Here were varied and contrasting conditions to give many
moods to the waters, and all this display could easily be seen during
one active day.
June was the month chosen, since in the region of the St. Vrain that
is the rainiest part of the year. After thoroughly exploring the
ground I concluded to go down the river a few miles and make
headquarters in a new sawmill. There I spent delightful days in
gathering information concerning tree-growth and in making
biographical studies of several veteran logs, as the saw ripped open
and revealed their life-scrolls.
One morning I was awakened by the pelting and thumping of large,
widely scattered raindrops on the roof of the mill. Tree stories were
forgotten, and I rushed outdoors. The sky was filled with the
structureless gloom of storm-cloud, and the heavy, calm air suggested
rain. "We'll get a wetting such as you read of, to-day!" declared the
sawmill foreman, as I made haste to start for the wilds.
I plunged into the woods and went eagerly up the dim, steep mountain
trail which kept close company with the river St. Vrain. Any doubts
concerning the strength of the storm were quickly washed away. My
dry-weather clothes were swiftly soaked, but with notebook safe under
my hat, I hastened to gain the "forks" as soon as possible, enjoying
the general downpour and the softened noise that it made through the
woods. I had often been out in rains on the Rockies, but this one was
wetting the earth with less effort than any I had ever experienced.
For half an hour no air stirred; then, while crossing a small
irregular opening in the woods, I was caught in a storm-centre of
wrangling winds and waters, and now and then their weight would almost
knock me over, until, like a sapling, I bowed, streaming, in the
storm. The air was full of "water-dust," and, once across the open, I
made haste to hug a tree, hoping to find a breath of air that was not
saturated to strangulation.
Neither bird nor beast had been seen, nor did I expect to come upon
any, unless by chance my movements drove one from its refuge; but
while I sat on a sodden log, reveling in elemental moods and sounds, a
water-ouzel came flying along. He alighted on a boulder which the
on-sweeping stream at my feet seemed determined to drown or dislodge,
and, making his usual courtesies, he began to sing. His melody is
penetrating; but so sustained was the combined roar of the stream and
the storm that there came to me only a few notes of his energetic
nesting-time song. His expressive attitudes and gestures were so
harmoniously united with these, however, that I could not help feeling
that he was singing with all his might to the water, the woods, and
me.
Keeping close to the stream, I continued my climb. My ear now caught
the feeble note of a robin, who was making discouraged and
disconsolate efforts at song, and it seemed to issue from a throat
clogged with wet cotton. Plainly the world was not beautiful to him,
and the attempt at music was made to kill time or cheer himself up.
The robin and the ouzel,--how I love them both, and yet how utterly
unlike they are! The former usually chooses so poor a building-site,
anchors its nest so carelessly, or builds so clumsily, that the
precious contents are often spilled or the nest discovered by some
enemy. His mental make-up is such that he is prone to predict the
worst possible outcome of any new situation. The ouzel, on the other
hand, is sweet and serene. He builds his nest upon a rock and tucks
it where search and sharp eyes may not find it. He appears indifferent
to the comings and goings of beast or man, enjoys all weathers, seems
entranced with life, and may sing every day of the year.
Up in the lower margin of the Engelmann spruce forest the wind now
ceased and the clouds began to conserve their waters. The territory
which I was about to explore is on the eastern summit slopes of the
Rockies, between the altitudes of ninety-five hundred and twelve
thousand feet. Most of these slopes were steep, and much of the soil
had a basis of disintegrated granite. The forested and the treeless
slopes had approximately equal areas, and were much alike in regard to
soil, inclination, and altitude, while the verdure of both areas
before the forest fire had been almost identical. The St. Vrain is
formed by two branches flowing northeasterly and southeasterly, the
former draining the treeless area and the latter the forested one.
Below the junction, the united waters sweep away through the woods,
but at it, and a short distance above, the fire had destroyed every
living thing.
At the forks I found many things of interest. The branch with dark
waters from the barren slopes was already swollen to many times its
normal volume and was thick with sediment from the fire-scarred
region. The stream with white waters from the forest had risen just a
trifle, and there was only a slight stain visible. These noticeable
changes were produced by an hour of rain. I dipped several canfuls
from the deforested drainage fork, and after each had stood half a
minute the water was poured off. The average quantity of sediment
remaining was one fifth of a canful, while the white water from the
forested slope deposited only a thin layer on the bottom of the can.
It was evident that the forest was absorbing and delaying the water
clinging to its soil and sediment. In fact, both streams carried so
much suggestive and alluring news concerning storm effects on the
slopes above that I determined to hasten on in order to climb over and
watch them while they were dashed and drenched with rain.
[Illustration: AMONG THE CLOUDS
Continental Divide, near Long's Peak]
Planning to return and give more attention to the waters of both
branches at this place, I started to inspect first the forested sides.
The lower of these slopes were tilted with a twenty to twenty-five per
cent grade, and covered with a primeval Engelmann spruce forest of
tall, crowding trees, the age of which, as I had learned during
previous visits, was only a few years less than two centuries.
The forest floor was covered with a thick carpet of litter,--one which
the years had woven out of the wreckage of limbs and leaves. This,
though loosely, coarsely woven, has a firm feeling when trodden during
dry weather. To-day however, the forest floor seemed recently
upholstered. It is absorbent; hence the water had filled the
interstices and given elasticity. I cleared away some of this litter
and found that it had an average depth of fifteen inches. The upper
third lay loosely, but below it the weave was more compact and much
finer than that on or near the surface. I judged that two inches of
rain had fallen and had soaked to an average depth of eight inches. It
was interesting to watch the water ooze from the broken walls of this
litter, or humus, on the upper sides of the holes which I dug down
into it. One of these was close to a bare, tilted slope of granite. As
I stood watching the water slowly dripping from the broken humus and
rapidly racing down the rocks, the thought came to me that, with the
same difference in speed, the run-off from the deforested land might
be breaking through the levees at New Orleans before the water from
these woods escaped and got down as far as the sawmill.
The forest might well proclaim: "As long as I stand, my countless
roots shall clutch and clasp the soil like eagles' claws and hold it
on these slopes. I shall add to this soil by annually creating more. I
shall heave it with my growing roots, loosen and cover it with litter
rugs, and maintain a porous, sievelike surface that will catch the
rain and so delay and distribute these waters that at the foot of my
slope perennial springs will ever flow quietly toward the sea. Destroy
me, and on stormy days the waters may wash away the unanchored soil as
they run unresisted down the slopes, to form a black, destructive
flood in the home-dotted valley below."
The summit of the forested slope was comparatively smooth where I
gained it, and contained a few small, ragged-edged, grassy spaces
among its spruces and firs. The wind was blowing and the low clouds
pressed, hurried along the ground, whirled through the grassy places,
and were driven and dragged swiftly among the trees. I was in the
lower margin of cloud, and it was like a wet, gray night. Nothing
could be seen clearly, even at a few feet, and every breath I took was
like swallowing a saturated sponge.
These conditions did not last long, for a wind-surge completely rent
the clouds and gave me a glimpse of the blue, sun-filled sky. I
hurried along the ascending trend of the ridge, hoping to get above
the clouds, but they kept rising, and after I had traveled half a mile
or more I gave it up. Presently I was impressed with the height of an
exceptionally tall spruce that stood in the centre of a group of its
companions. At once I decided to climb it and have a look over the
country and cloud from its swaying top.
When half way up, the swift manner in which the tree was tracing
seismographic lines through the air awakened my interest in the trunk
that was holding me. Was it sound or not? At the foot appearances gave
it good standing. The exercising action of ordinary winds probably
toughens the wood fibres of young trees, but this one was no longer
young, and the wind was high. I held an ear against the trunk and
heard a humming whisper which told only of soundness. A blow with
broad side of my belt axe told me that it rang true and would stand
the storm and myself.
The sound brought a spectator from a spruce with broken top that stood
almost within touching distance of me. In this tree was a squirrel
home, and my axe had brought the owner from his hole. What an angry,
comic midget he was, this Frémont squirrel! With fierce whiskers and a
rattling, choppy, jerky chatter, he came out on a dead limb that
pointed toward me, and made a rush as though to annihilate me or to
cause me to take hurried flight; but as I held on he found himself
more "up in the air" than I was. He stopped short, shut off his
chatter, and held himself at close range facing me, a picture of
furious study. This scene occurred in a brief period that was
undisturbed by either wind or rain. We had a good look at each other.
He was every inch alive, but for a second or two both his place and
expression were fixed. He sat with eyes full of telling wonder and
with face that showed intense curiosity. A dash of wind and rain ended
our interview, for after his explosive introduction neither of us had
uttered a sound. He fled into his hole, and from this a moment later
thrust forth his head; but presently he subsided and withdrew. As I
began to climb again, I heard muffled expletives from within his tree
that sounded plainly like "Fool, fool, fool!"
The wind had tried hard to dislodge me, but, seated on the small limbs
and astride the slender top, I held on. The tree shook and danced;
splendidly we charged, circled, looped, and angled; such wild,
exhilarating joy I have not elsewhere experienced. At all times I
could feel in the trunk a subdued quiver or vibration, and I half
believe that a tree's greatest joys are the dances it takes with the
winds.
Conditions changed while I rocked there; the clouds rose, the wind
calmed, and the rain ceased to fall. Thunder occasionally rumbled, but
I was completely unprepared for the blinding flash and explosive crash
of the bolt that came. The violent concussion, the wave of air which
spread from it like an enormous, invisible breaker, almost knocked me
over. A tall fir that stood within fifty feet of me was struck, the
top whirled off, and the trunk split in rails to the ground. I quickly
went back to earth, for I was eager to see the full effect of the
lightning's stroke on that tall, slender evergreen cone. With one
wild, mighty stroke, in a second or less, the century-old tree tower
was wrecked.
Leaving this centenarian, I climbed up the incline a few hundred feet
higher and started out through the woods to the deforested side.
Though it was the last week in June, it was not long before I was
hampered with snow. Ragged patches, about six feet deep, covered more
than half of the forest floor. This was melting rapidly and was
"rotten" from the rain, so that I quickly gave up the difficult task
of fording it and made an abrupt descent until below the snow-line,
where I again headed for the fire-cleared slopes.
As I was leaving the wood, the storm seemed to begin all over again.
The rain at first fell steadily, but soon slackened, and the lower
cloud-margins began to drift through the woods. Just before reaching
the barrens I paused to breathe in a place where the trees were well
spaced, and found myself facing a large one with deeply furrowed bark
and limbs plentifully covered with short, fat, blunt needles. I was at
first puzzled to know what kind it was, but at last I recognized it as
a Douglas fir or "Oregon pine." I had never before seen this species
at so great an altitude,--approximately ten thousand feet. It was a
long distance from home, but it stood so contentedly in the quiet rain
that I half expected to hear it remark, "The traditions of my family
are mostly associated with gray, growing days of this kind."
Out on the barren slopes the few widely scattered, fire-killed,
fire-preserved trees with broken arms stood partly concealed and
lonely in the mists. After zigzagging for a time over the ruins, I
concluded to go at once to the uppermost side and thence down to the
forks. But the rain was again falling, and the clouds were so low and
heavy that the standing skeleton trees could not be seen unless one
was within touching distance. There was no wind or lightning, only a
warm, steady rain. It was, in fact, so comfortable that I sat down to
enjoy it until a slackening should enable me better to see the things
I most wanted to observe.
There was no snow about, and three weeks before at the same place I
had found only one small drift which was shielded and half-covered
with shelving rock. The dry Western air is insatiable and absorbs
enormous quantities of water, and, as the Indians say, "eats snow."
The snowless area about me was on a similar slope and at about the
same altitude as the snow-filled woods, so the forest is evidently an
effective check upon the ravenous winds.
Now the rain almost ceased, and I began to descend. The upper gentle
slopes were completely covered with a filmy sheet of clear water which
separated into tattered torrents and took on color. These united and
grew in size as they progressed from the top, and each was separated
from its companions by ridges that widened and gulches that deepened
as down the sides they went. The waters carried most of the eroded
material away, but here and there, where they crossed a comparatively
level stretch, small deposits of gravel were made or sandbars and
deltas formed.
Occasionally I saw miniature landslides, and, hoping for a larger one
to move, I hurried downward. Knowing that the soil is often deep at
the foot of crags on account of contributions from above, together
with the protection from erosion which the cliffs gave, I endeavored
to find such a place. While searching, I had occasion to jump from a
lower ledge on a cliff to the deposit below. The distance to the slope
and its real pitch were minimized by the mists. After shooting through
the air for at least thrice the supposed distance to the slope, I
struck heavily and loosened several rods of a landslide. I tumbled off
the back of it, but not before its rock points had made some
impressions.
I sought safety and a place of lookout on a crag, and picked bits of
granite gravel from my anatomy. Presently I heard a muffled creaking,
and looked up to see a gigantic landslide starting. At first it moved
slowly, seemed to hesitate, then slid faster, with its stone-filled
front edge here and there doubling and rolling under; finally the
entire mass broke into yawning, ragged fissures as it shot forward and
plunged over a cliff. Waiting until most of the straggling, detached
riffraff had followed, I hastened to examine the place just evacuated.
In getting down I disturbed a ground-hog from his rock point, and
found that he was in the same attitude and position I had seen him
holding just before the slide started, so that the exhibition had
merely caused him to move his eyes a little.
In the cracks and crevices of the glaciated rock-slope from which this
mass had slid, there were broken, half-decayed roots and numerous
marks which showed where other roots had held. It seems probable that
if the grove which sustained them had not been destroyed by fire, they
in turn would have anchored and held securely the portion of land
which had just slipped away.
I went over the lower slopes of the burned area and had a look at
numerous new-made gullies, and near the forks I measured a large one.
It was more than a hundred feet long, two to four feet wide, and, over
the greater part of its length, more than four feet deep. It was
eroded by the late downpour, and its misplaced material, after being
deposited by the waters, would of itself almost call for an increase
of the river and harbor appropriations.
Late in the afternoon, with the storm breaking, I stopped and watched
the largest torrent from the devastated region pour over a cliff. This
waterfall more nearly represented a liquefied landslide, for it was
burdened with sediment and spoils. As it rushed wildly over, it
carried enormous quantities of dirt, gravel, and other earthy
wreckage, and some of the stones were as large as a man's hat. Now and
then there was a slackening, but these momentary subsidences were
followed by explosive outpourings with which mingled large pieces of
charred or half-decayed wood, sometimes closely pursued by a small
boulder or some rock-fragments. Surely, these deforested slopes were
heavy contributors to the millions of tons of undesirable matter that
annually went in to fill the channel and vex the current of the
Mississippi!
These demonstrations brought to mind a remark of an army engineer to
the effect that the "Western forest fires had resulted in filling the
Missouri River channel full of dissolved Rocky Mountains." The action
of the water on this single burned area suggested that ten thousand
other fireswept heights must be rapidly diminishing. At all events, it
is evident that, unless this erosion is stopped, boats before long
will hardly find room to enter the Mississippi. It now became easier
to account for the mud-filled channel of the great river, and also for
the innumerable bars that display their broad backs above its
shallow, sluggish water. Every smooth or fluted fill in this great
stream tells of a ragged gulch or a roughened, soilless place
somewhere on a slope at one of its sources.
What a mingling of matter makes up the mud of the Mississippi,--a soil
mixture from twenty States, the blended richness of ten thousand
slopes! Coming up the "Father of Waters," and noting its obstructions
of sediment and sand, its embarrassment of misplaced material, its
dumps and deposits of soil,--monumental ruins of wasted
resources,--one may say, "Here lies the lineal descendant of Pike's
Peak; here the greater part of an Ohio hill"; or, "A flood took this
from a terraced cotton-field, and this from a farm in sunny
Tennessee." A mud flat itself might remark, "The thoughtless lumberman
who caused my downfall is now in Congress urging river improvement";
and the shallow waters at the big bend could add, "Our once deep
channel was filled with soil from a fire-scourged mountain. The
minister whose vacation fire caused this ruin is now a militant
missionary among the heathen of Cherry Blossom land."
Wondering if the ouzel's boulder had been rolled away, or if the deep
hole above it, where the mill men caught trout, had been filled with
wash, I decided to go at once and see, and then return for a final
look about the forks. Yes, the boulder was missing, apparently buried,
for the hole was earth-filled and the trout gone. So it was evident
that forests were helpful even to the fish in the streams. I took off
my hat to the trees and started back to the junction. On the way I
resolved to tell the men in the mill that a tree is the most useful
thing that grows, and that floods may be checked by forests.
The storm was over and the clouds were retreating. On a fallen log
that lay across the main stream I lingered and watched the dark and
white waters mingle. The white stream was slowly rising, while the
dark one was rapidly falling. In a few days the one from the barren
slopes would be hardly alive, while the other from among the trees
would be singing a song full of strength as it swept on toward the
sea.
[Illustration: FULL STREAMS]
The forest-born stream is the useful and beautiful one. It has a
steady flow of clear water, and fishermen cheerfully come to its
green, mossy banks. The buildings along its course are safe from
floods, and are steadily served with the power of its reliable flow;
its channel is free from mud and full of water; it allows the busy
boats of commerce freely to come and go; in countless ways it serves
the activities of man. It never causes damage, and always enriches and
gladdens the valley through which it flows on to the sea.
A song roused me from my revery. The sky was almost clear, and the
long, ragged shadows of the nearest peaks streamed far toward the
east. Not a breath of air stirred. Far away a hermit thrush was
singing, while a thousand spruces stood and listened. In the midst of
this a solitaire on the top of a pine tree burst out in marvelous
melody.
The Fate of a Tree Seed
The Fate of a Tree Seed
The ripened seeds of trees are sent forth with many strange devices
and at random for the unoccupied and fertile places of the earth.
There are six hundred kinds of trees in North America, and each of
these equips its seeds in a peculiar way, that they may take advantage
of wind, gravity, water, birds, or beasts to transport them on their
home-seeking journey.
The whole seed-sowing story is a fascinating one. Blindly, often thick
as snow, the seeds go forth to seek their fortune,--to find a
rooting-place. All are in danger, many are limited as to time, and the
majority are restricted to a single effort. A few, however, have a
complex and novel equipment and with this make a long, romantic, and
sometimes an adventurous journey, colonizing at last some strange land
far from the place of their birth. Commonly, however, this journey is
brief, and usually after one short fall or flight the seed comes to
rest where it will sprout or perish. Generally it dies.
One autumn afternoon in southeastern Missouri, seated upon some
driftwood on the shallow margin of the Mississippi, I discovered a
primitive craft that was carrying a colony of adventurous tree seeds
down the mighty river. As I watched and listened, the nuts pattered
upon the fallen leaves and the Father of Waters purled and whispered
as he slipped his broad yellow-gray current almost silently to the
sea. Here and there a few broad-backed sandbars showed themselves
above the surface, as though preparing to rise up and inquire what had
become of the water.
This primitive craft was a log that drifted low and heavy, end on with
the current. It was going somewhere with a small cargo of tree seeds.
Upon a broken upraised limb of the log sat a kingfisher. As it drifted
with the current, breezes upon the wooded hill-tops decorated the
autumn air with deliberately falling leaves and floating winged seeds.
The floating log pointed straight for a sand-bar upon which other
logs and snags were stranded. I determined, when it should come
aground, to see the character of the cargo that it carried.
Now and then, as I sat there, the heavy round nuts like merry boys
came bounding and rattling down the hillside, which rose from the
water's edge. Occasionally as a nut dropped from the tree-top he
struck a limb spring board and from this made a long leap outward for
a roll down the hillside. These nuts were walnut and hickory; and like
most heavy nuts they traveled by rolling, floating, and squirrel
carriage.
One nut dropped upon a low limb, glanced far outward, and landed upon
a log, from which it bounced outward and went bouncing down the
hillside _aplunk_ into the river. Slowly it rolled this way and that
in the almost currentless water. At last it made up its mind, and,
with the almost invisible swells, commenced to float slowly toward the
floating log out in the river. By and by the current caught it,
carried it toward and round the sand-bar, to float away with the
onsweep toward the sea. This nut may have been carried a few miles or
a few hundred before it went ashore on the bank of the river or
landed upon some romantic island to sprout and grow. Seeds often are
carried by rivers and then successfully planted, after many stops and
advances, far from the parent tree.
The log hesitated as it approached the sand-bar, as if cautiously
smelling with its big, rooty nose; but at last it swung round
broadside, and sleepily allowed the current to put it to bed upon the
sand. As a tree, this log had lived on the banks of the Mississippi or
one of its tributaries, in Minnesota. While standing it had for a time
served as a woodpecker home. In one of the larger excavations made by
these birds, I found some white pine cones and other seeds from the
north that had been stored by bird or squirrel. A long voyage these
seeds had taken; they may have continued the journey, landing at last
to grow in sunny Tennessee; or they may have sunk to the bottom of the
river or even have perished in the salt waters of the Gulf.
In climbing up the steep hillside above the river, I found many nests
of hickory and walnuts against the upper side of fallen logs. Upon
the level hill-top the ground beneath the tree was thickly covered
with fallen nuts; only a few of these had got a tree's length away
from the parent. Occasionally, however, a wind-gust used a long,
slender limb as a sling, and flung the attached nuts afar.
The squirrels were active, laying up a hoard of nuts for winter. Many
a walnut, hickory, or butternut tree at some distant place may have
grown from an uneaten or forgotten nut which the squirrels carried
away.
The winged seeds are the ones that are most widely scattered. These
are grown by many kinds of trees. From May until midwinter trees of
this kind are giving their little atoms of life to the great
seed-sower, the wind. Most winged seeds have one wing for each seed
and commonly each makes but one flight. Generally the lighter the seed
and the higher the wind, the farther the seed will fly or be blown.
In May the silver maple starts the flight of winged seeds. This tree
has a seed about the size of a peanut, provided with a one-sided wing
as large as one's thumb. It sails away from the tree, settling
rapidly toward the earth with heavy end downward, whirling round and
round as it falls. Red maple seeds ripen in June, but not until autumn
does the hard maple send its winged ones forth from amid the painted
leaves.
The seed of an ash tree is like a dart. In the different ashes these
are of different lengths, but all have two-edged wings which in calm
weather dart the seed to the snowy earth; but in a lively wind they
are tumbled and whirled about while being unceremoniously carried
afar; this they do not mind, for at the first lull they right
themselves and drop in good form to the earth.
Cottonwoods and willows send forth their seeds inclosed in a dainty
puff or ball of silky cotton that is so light that the wind often
carries it long distances. With the willow this device is so airy and
dainty that it is easily entangled on twigs or grass and may never
reach the earth. The willow seed, too, is so feeble that it will often
perish inside twenty-four hours if it does not find a most favorable
germinating-place. This makes but little difference to the willows,
for they do not depend upon seeds for extension but upon the breaking
off of roots or twigs by various agencies; these pieces of roots or
twigs often are carried miles by streams, and take root perhaps at the
first place where they go around.
The seeds of the sycamore are in balls attached to the limbs by a
slender twiglet. The winter winds beat and thump these balls against
the limbs, thus causing the seeds to loosen and to drop a few at a
time to the earth. Each seed is a light little pencil which at one end
is equipped with a whorl of hairs,--a parachute which delays its fall
and thus enables the wind to carry it away from the parent tree.
The conifers--the pines, firs, and spruces--have ingeniously devised
and developed their winged seeds for wind distribution. Most of these
seeds are light, and each is attached to a dainty feather or wing
which is used on its commencement day. These wings are as handsome as
insects' wings, dainty enough for fairies; they are purple, plain
brown, and spotted, and so balanced that they revolve or whirl,
glinting in the autumn sun as they go on their adventurous wind-blown
flight to the earth. A high wind may carry them miles.
With the pines and spruces the cones open one or a few scales at a
time, so that the seeds from each cone are distributed through many
days. The firs, however, carry cones that when ripe often collapse in
the wind. The entire filling of seeds are thus dropped at once and
fill the air with flocks of merry, diving, glinting wings. A heavy
seed-crop in a coniferous forest gives a touch of poetry to the
viewless air.
The lodge-pole pine is one of the most patient and philosophical
seed-sowers in the forest. It is a prolific seed-producer and has a
remarkable hoarding characteristic,--that of keeping its cones closed
and holding on to them for years. Commonly a forest fire kills trees
without consuming them. With the lodge-pole the fire frequently burns
off the needles, leaving the tree standing, but it melts the
sealing-wax on the cones. Thus the fire releases these seeds and they
fall upon a freshly fire-cleaned soil,--a condition for them most
favorable.
Although the cherry is without wings or a flying-machine of its own,
it is rich enough to employ the rarest transportation in the world.
With attractively colored and luscious pulp it hires many beautiful
birds to carry it to new scenes. On the wings of the mockingbird and
the hermit thrush,--what a happy and romantic way in which to seek the
promised land!
Many kinds of pulp-covered seeds that are attractive and delicious
when ripe are unpleasant to the taste while green; this protective
measure guards them against being sown before they are ready or ripe.
The instant persimmons are ripe, the trees are full of opossums which
disseminate the ready-to-grow seeds; but Mr. 'Possum avoids the green
and puckery persimmons!
The big tree is one of the most fruitful of seed-bearers. In a single
year one of these may produce some millions of fertile seeds. These
mature in comparatively small cones and, each seed being light as air,
they are sometimes carried by high winds across ridges and ravines
before being dropped to the earth.
The honey locust uses a peculiar device to secure wind assistance in
pushing afar its long, purplish pods with their heavy beanlike seeds.
This pod is not only flattened but crooked and slightly twisted.
Dropping from the tree in midwinter, it often lands upon crusted snow.
Here on windy days it becomes a kind of crude ice-boat and goes
skimming along before the wind; with its flattened, twisted surface it
ever presents a boosting-surface to the breeze.
The ironwood tree launches its seeds each seated in the prow of a tiny
boat, which floats or careers away upon the invisible ocean of air,
sinking, after a rudderless voyage, to the earth. The attachment to
some seeds is bladder- or balloon-like; tied helplessly to this, the
seed is cast forth briefly to wander with the wandering winds.
The linden, or basswood, tree uses a monoplane for buoyancy. The
basswood attaches or suspends a number of seeds by slender threads to
the centre of a leaf; in autumn when this falls it resists gravity for
a time and ofttimes with its clinging cargo alights far from the tree
which sent it forth.
Burr- or hook-covered seeds may become attached to the backs of
animals and thus be transported afar. One day in Colorado I disturbed
a black bear in some willows more than a mile from the woods; as he
ran over a grassy ridge three or four pine cones that had been hooked
and entangled in his hair went spinning off. Seeds sometimes are
internationally distributed by becoming attached by some sticky
substance--pitch or dried mud--to the legs or feathers of birds.
Cottonwood seed often has a long ride, though generally a fruitless
one, by alighting in the hair of some animal. Sometimes a cone or nut
becomes wedged between the hoofs of an animal and is carried about for
days; taken miles before it is dropped, it grows a lone tree far from
the nearest grove.
Though the witch-hazel is no longer invested with eerie charms, it
still has its own peculiar way of doing things. It chooses to bloom
alone in the autumn, just at the time its seeds are ripe and
scattering. Assisted by the frost and the sun, it scatters its
shotlike seeds with a series of snappy little explosions which fling
them twelve to twenty feet from the capsule in which they ripen.
The mangrove trees of Florida germinate their seeds upon the tree and
then drop little plants off into the water; here winds and currents
may move them hither and yon as they blindly explore for a
rooting-place.
The cocoanut tree covers its nuts with a kind of "excelsior" which
prevents their breaking upon the rocks. This also facilitates the
floating and transportation of the nut in the sea. When the breakers
have flung it upon rocks or broken reefs, here its fibrous covering
helps it cling until the young roots grow and anchor it securely.
Thus endlessly during all the seasons of the year the trees are sowing
their ripened seed and sending them forth, variously equipped, blindly
to seek a place in which they may live, perpetuate the species, and
extend the forest.
It is well that nature sows seeds like a spendthrift. So many are the
chances against the seed, so numerous are the destroying agencies, so
few are the places in reach that are unoccupied, that perhaps not
more than one seed in a million ever germinates, and hardly one tree
in a thousand that starts to grow ever attains maturity. Through sheer
force of numbers and continuous seed-scattering, the necessarily
random methods of nature produce results; and where opportunity opens,
trees promptly extend their holdings or reclaim a territory from which
they have been driven.
Many times I have wandered through the coniferous forests in the
mountains when the seeds were ripe and fluttering thick as snowflakes
to the earth. Visiting ridges, slopes, and cañons, I have watched the
pines, firs, and spruces closing a year's busy, invisible activity by
merrily strewing the air and the earth with their fruits,--seeding for
the centuries to come. One breathless autumn day I looked up into the
blue sky from the bottom of a cañon. The golden air was as thickly
filled with winged seeds as a perfect night with stars. A light local
air-current made a milky way across this sky. Myriads of becalmed and
suspended seeds were fixed stars. Some of the seeds, each with a filmy
wing, hurried through elliptical orbits like comets as they settled
to the earth; while innumerable others, as they came rotating down,
were revolving through planetary orbits in this seed-sown field of
space. Now and then a number of cones on a fir tree collapsed and
precipitated into space a meteoric shower of slow-descending seeds and
a hurried zigzag fall of heavier scales. Occasionally on a ridge-top a
few of the lighter seeds would come floating upward through an
air-chimney as though carried in an invisible smoke-column.
One windy day I crossed the mountains when a gale was driving millions
of low-flying seeds before it. Away they swept down the slope, to
whirl widely and flutter over the gulch where the wind-current dashed
against the uprising mountain beyond. Most of the seeds were flung to
the earth along the way or dropped in the bottom of the gulch; a few,
however, were carried by the swift uprushing current up and across the
mountain and at last scattered on the opposite side.
When the last seed of the year has fallen, how thickly the woodland
regions are sown broadcast with seeds! Only a few of these will have
landed in a hospitable place. The overwhelmingly majority fell in the
water to drown or on rock ledges or other places to starve or wither.
The few fortunate enough to find unoccupied and fertile places will
still have to reckon with devouring insects and animals. How different
may be the environment of two seedlings sprung from seeds grown on the
selfsame tree! On their commencement day two little atoms of life may
be separated by the wind: one finds shelter and fertile earth; the
other roots in a barely livable place on the cold, stormbeaten heights
of timber-line. Both use their inherent energy and effort to the
utmost. One becomes a forest monarch; the other a dwarf, uncouth and
ugly.
In a Mountain Blizzard
In a Mountain Blizzard
At the close of one of our winter trips, my collie Scotch and I
started across the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains in face
of weather conditions that indicated a snowstorm or a blizzard before
we could gain the other side. We had eaten the last of our food
twenty-four hours before and could no longer wait for fair weather. So
off we started to scale the snowy steeps of the cold, gray heights a
thousand feet above. The mountains already were deeply snow-covered
and it would have been a hard trip even without the discomforts and
dangers of a storm.
I was on snowshoes and for a week we had been camping and tramping
through the snowy forests and glacier meadows at the source of Grand
River, two miles above the sea. The primeval Rocky Mountain forests
are just as near to Nature's heart in winter as in summer. I had found
so much to study and enjoy that the long distance from a food-supply,
even when the last mouthful was eaten, had not aroused me to the
seriousness of the situation. Scotch had not complained, and appeared
to have the keenest collie interest in the tracks and trails, the
scenes and silences away from the haunts of man. The snow lay seven
feet deep, but by keeping in my snowshoe tracks Scotch easily followed
me about. Our last camp was in the depths of an alpine forest at an
altitude of ten thousand feet. Here, though zero weather prevailed, we
were easily comfortable beside a fire under the protection of an
overhanging cliff.
After a walk through woods the sun came blazing in our faces past the
snow-piled crags on Long's Peak, and threw slender blue shadows of the
spiry spruces far out in a white glacier meadow to meet us. Rëentering
the tall but open woods, we saw, down the long aisles and limb-arched
avenues, a forest of tree columns, entangled in sunlight and shadow,
standing on a snowy marble floor.
[Illustration: ON GRAND RIVER, MIDDLE PARK, IN WINTER]
We were on the Pacific slope, and our plan was to cross the summit
by the shortest way between timber-line and timber-line on the
Atlantic side. This meant ascending a thousand feet, descending an
equal distance, traveling five miles amid bleak, rugged environment.
Along the treeless, gradual ascent we started, realizing that the last
steep icy climb would be dangerous and defiant. Most of the snow had
slid from the steeper places, and much of the remainder had blown
away. Over the unsheltered whole the wind was howling. For a time the
sun shone dimly through the wind-driven snow-dust that rolled from the
top of the range, but it disappeared early behind wild, windswept
clouds.
After gaining a thousand feet of altitude through the friendly forest,
we climbed out and up above the trees on a steep slope at timber-line.
This place, the farthest up for trees, was a picturesque, desolate
place. The dwarfed, gnarled, storm-shaped trees amid enormous
snow-drifts told of endless, and at times deadly, struggles of the
trees with the elements. Most of the trees were buried, but here and
there a leaning or a storm-distorted one bent bravely above the
snows.
At last we were safely on a ridge and started merrily off, hoping to
cover speedily the three miles of comparatively level plateau.
How the wind did blow! Up more than eleven thousand feet above the
sea, with not a tree to steady or break, it had a royal sweep. The
wind appeared to be putting forth its wildest efforts to blow us off
the ridge. There being a broad way, I kept well from the edges. The
wind came with a dash and heavy rush, first from one quarter, then
from another. I was watchful and faced each rush firmly braced.
Generally, this preparedness saved me; but several times the wind
apparently expanded or exploded beneath me, and, with an upward toss,
I was flung among the icy rocks and crusted snows. Finally I took to
dropping and lying flat whenever a violent gust came ripping among the
crags.
There was an arctic barrenness to this alpine ridge,--not a house
within miles, no trail, and here no tree could live to soften the
sternness of the landscape or to cheer the traveler. The way was amid
snowy piles, icy spaces, and windswept crags.
The wind slackened and snow began to fall just as we were leaving the
smooth plateau for the broken part of the divide. The next mile of way
was badly cut to pieces with deep gorges from both sides of the ridge.
The inner ends of several of these broke through the centre of the
ridge and extended beyond the ends of the gorges from the opposite
side. This made the course a series of sharp, short zigzags.
We went forward in the flying snow. I could scarcely see, but felt
that I could keep the way on the broken ridge between the numerous
rents and cañons. On snowy, icy ledges the wind took reckless
liberties. I wanted to stop but dared not, for the cold was intense
enough to freeze one in a few minutes.
Fearing that a snow-whirl might separate us, I fastened one end of my
light, strong rope to Scotch's collar and the other end to my belt.
This proved to be fortunate for both, for while we were crossing an
icy, though moderate, slope, a gust of wind swept me off my feet and
started us sliding. It was not steep, but was so slippery I could not
stop, nor see where the slope ended, and I grabbed in vain at the few
icy projections. Scotch also lost his footing and was sliding and
rolling about, and the wind was hurrying us along, when I threw myself
flat and dug at the ice with fingers and toes. In the midst of my
unsuccessful efforts we were brought to a sudden stop by the rope
between us catching over a small rock-point that was thrust up through
the ice. Around this in every direction was smooth, sloping ice; this,
with the high wind, made me wonder for a moment how we were to get
safely off the slope. The belt axe proved the means, for with it I
reached out as far as I could and chopped a hole in the ice, while
with the other hand I clung to the rock-point. Then, returning the axe
to my belt, I caught hold in the chopped place and pulled myself
forward, repeating this until on safe footing.
In oncoming darkness and whirling snow I had safely rounded the ends
of two gorges and was hurrying forward over a comparatively level
stretch, with the wind at my back boosting along. Scotch was running
by my side and evidently was trusting me to guard against all
dangers. This I tried to do. Suddenly, however, there came a fierce
dash of wind and whirl of snow that hid everything. Instantly I flung
myself flat, trying to stop quickly. Just as I did this I caught the
strange, weird sound made by high wind as it sweeps across a cañon,
and at once realized that we were close to a storm-hidden gorge. I
stopped against a rock, while Scotch slid in and was hauled back with
the rope.
The gorge had been encountered between two out-thrusting side gorges,
and between these in the darkness I had a cold time feeling my way
out. At last I came to a cairn of stones which I recognized. The way
had been missed by only a few yards, but this miss had been nearly
fatal.
Not daring to hurry in the darkness in order to get warm, I was
becoming colder every moment. I still had a stiff climb between me and
the summit, with timber-line three rough miles beyond. To attempt to
make it would probably result in freezing or tumbling into a gorge. At
last I realized that I must stop and spend the night in a snow-drift.
Quickly kicking and trampling a trench in a loose drift, I placed my
elk-skin sleeping-bag therein, thrust Scotch into the bag, and then
squeezed into it myself.
I was almost congealed with cold. My first thought after warming up
was to wonder why I had not earlier remembered the bag. Two in a bag
would guarantee warmth, and with warmth a snow-drift on the crest of
the continent would not be a bad place in which to lodge for the
night.
The sounds of wind and snow beating upon the bag grew fainter and
fainter as we were drifted and piled over with the latter. At the same
time our temperature rose, and before long it was necessary to open
the flap of the bag slightly for ventilation.
At last the sounds of the storm could barely be heard. Was the storm
quieting down, or was its roar muffled and lost in the deepening cover
of snow, was the unimportant question occupying my thoughts when I
fell asleep.
Scotch awakened me in trying to get out of the bag. It was morning.
Out we crawled, and, standing with only my head above the drift, I
found the air still and saw a snowy mountain world all serene in the
morning sun. I hastily adjusted sleeping-bag and snowshoes, and we set
off for the final climb to the summit.
The final one hundred feet or so rose steep, jagged, and ice-covered
before me. There was nothing to lay hold of; every point of vantage
was plated and coated with non-prehensible ice. There appeared only
one way to surmount this icy barrier and that was to chop toe and hand
holes from the bottom to the top of this icy wall, which in places was
close to vertical. Such a climb would not be especially difficult or
dangerous for me, but could Scotch do it? He could hardly know how to
place his feet in the holes or on the steps properly; nor could he
realize that a slip or a misstep would mean a slide and a roll to
death.
Leaving sleeping-bag and snowshoes with Scotch, I grasped my axe and
chopped my way to the top and then went down and carried bag and
snowshoes up. Returning for Scotch, I started him climbing just ahead
of me, so that I could boost and encourage him. We had gained only a
few feet when it became plain that sooner or later he would slip and
bring disaster to both. We stopped and descended to the bottom for a
new start.
Though the wind was again blowing a gale, I determined to carry him.
His weight was forty pounds, and he would make a top-heavy load and
give the wind a good chance to upset my balance and tip me off the
wall. But, as there appeared no other way, I threw him over my
shoulder and started up.
Many times Scotch and I had been in ticklish places together, and more
than once I had pulled him up rocky cliffs on which he could not find
footing. Several times I had carried him over gulches on fallen logs
that were too slippery for him. He was so trusting and so trained that
he relaxed and never moved while in my arms or on my shoulder.
[Illustration: SNOW AND SHADOW]
Arriving at the place least steep, I stopped to transfer Scotch from
one shoulder to the other. The wind was at its worst; its direction
frequently changed and it alternately calmed and then came on like
an explosion. For several seconds it had been roaring down the slope;
bracing myself to withstand its force from this direction, I was about
moving Scotch, when it suddenly shifted to one side and came with the
force of a breaker. It threw me off my balance and tumbled me heavily
against the icy slope.
Though my head struck solidly, Scotch came down beneath me and took
most of the shock. Instantly we glanced off and began to slide
swiftly. Fortunately I managed to get two fingers into one of the
chopped holes and held fast. I clung to Scotch with one arm; we came
to a stop, both saved. Scotch gave a yelp of pain when he fell beneath
me, but he did not move. Had he made a jump or attempted to help
himself, it is likely that both of us would have gone to the bottom of
the slope.
Gripping Scotch with one hand and clinging to the icy hold with the
other, I shuffled about until I got my feet into two holes in the icy
wall. Standing in these and leaning against the ice, with the wind
butting and dashing, I attempted the ticklish task of lifting Scotch
again to my shoulder--and succeeded. A minute later we paused to
breathe on the summit's icy ridge, between two oceans and amid seas of
snowy peaks.
A Midget in Fur
A Midget in Fur
The Frémont squirrel is the most audacious and wide-awake of wild folk
among whom I have lived. He appears to be ever up and doing, is
intensely in earnest at all times and strongly inclined to take a
serious view of things. Both the looks and manners of Mr. Frémont,
_Sciurus fremonti_, proclaim for him a close relationship with the
Douglas squirrel of California and the Pacific coast, the squirrel
immortalized by John Muir.
His most popular name is "Pine Squirrel," and he is found through the
pine and spruce forests of the Rocky Mountains and its spur ranges,
between the foothills and timber-line; a vertical, or altitudinal,
range of more than a mile. He assumes and asserts ownership of the
region occupied. If you invade his forests he will see you first and
watch you closely. Often he does this with simple curiosity, but more
often he is irritated by your presence and issues a chattering
protest while you are still at long range. If you continue to approach
after this proclamation, he may come down on a low limb near by and
give you as torrential and as abusive a "cussing" as trespasser ever
received from irate owner.
Yet he is most ridiculously small to do all that he threatens to do.
Of course he brags and bluffs, but these become admirable qualities in
this little fellow who will ably, desperately defend his domain
against heavy odds of size or numbers. Among the squirrels of the
world he is one of the smallest. He is clad in gray and his coat
perceptibly darkens in winter. His plumy tail, with a fringe of white
hairs, is as airy as thistledown. He always appears clean and
well-groomed.
Though in many ways a grizzly in miniature and apparently as untamable
as a tiger, the Frémont quickly responds to kind advances. Near my
cabin a number became so tame that they took peanuts from my hand,
sometimes even following me to the cabin door for this purpose.
These squirrels occasionally eat mushrooms, berries, and the inner
bark of pine twigs, but they depend almost entirely upon conifer nuts
or seeds, the greater part of these coming from the cones of pines and
spruces. They start harvesting the cones in early autumn, so as to
harvest all needed food for winter before the dry, ripened cones open
and empty their tiny seeds. Deftly they dart through the tree-tops
almost as swiftly as a hummingbird and as utterly indifferent to the
dangers of falling. With polished blades of ivory they clip off the
clinging, fruited cones. Happy, hopeful, harvest-home sounds the cones
make as they drop and bounce on the dry floor of the autumn woods.
Often a pair work together, one reaping the cones with his ivory
cutters and the other carrying them home, each being a sheaf of grain
of Nature's bundling.
When harvesting alone, Mr. Frémont is often annoyed by the chipmunks.
These little rascals will persist in stealing the fallen cones,
despite glaring eyes, irate looks, and deadly threats from the angry
harvester above. When finally he comes tearing down to carry his
terrible ultimatums into effect, the frightened chipmunks make haste
to be off, but usually some one is overtaken and knocked sprawling
with an accompanying rapid fire of denunciation.
One day I watched a single harvester who was busily, happily working.
He cut off a number of cones before descending to gather them. These
scattered widely like children playing hide-and-seek. One hid behind a
log; another bounced into some brush and stuck two feet above the
ground, while two others scampered far from the tree. The squirrel
went to each in turn without the least hesitation or search and as
though he had been to each spot a dozen times before.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF THE FRÉMONT SQUIRREL
On the Little Cimarron]
A squirrel often displays oddities both in the place selected for
storing the cones and the manner of their arrangement. Usually the
cones are wisely hoarded both for curing and for preservation, by
being stored a few in a place. This may be beneath a living tree or in
an open space, placed one layer deep in the loose forest litter
scarcely below the general level of the surface. They are also stowed
both in and upon old logs and stumps. Sometimes they are placed in
little nests with a half-dozen or so cones each; often there are a
dozen of these in a square yard. This scattering of the sap-filled
cones, together with the bringing of each into contact with dry
foreign substances, secures ventilation and assists the sappy cones to
dry and cure; if closely piled, many of these moist cones would be
lost through mould and decay.
The numbers of cones hoarded for winter by each squirrel varies with
different winters and also with individuals. I have many times counted
upwards of two hundred per squirrel. During years of scanty cone-crop
the squirrels claim the entire crop. The outcry raised against the
squirrel for preventing far extension, by consuming all the seeds, is
I think in the same class as the cry against the woodpecker; it
appears a cry raised by those who see only the harm without the
accompanying good. The fact is that many of the cones are never eaten;
more are stored than are wanted; some are forgotten, while others are
left by the death of the squirrel. Thus many are stored and left
uneaten in places where they are likely to germinate and produce
trees. John Muir too believes that the Douglas and Frémont squirrels
are beneficial to forest-extension.
Commonly the cones are stored in the same place year after year. In
dining, also, the squirrel uses a log, limb, or stump year after year.
Thus bushels of the slowly decaying scales and cobs accumulate in one
place. It is not uncommon for these accumulations to cover a square
rod to the depth of two feet.
I know of a few instances in which squirrels stowed cones in the edge
of a brook beneath the water. One of these places being near my cabin,
I kept track of it until the cones were used, which was in the spring.
In early autumn the cones were frozen in, and there they remained,
unvisited I think, until the break-up of the ice in April. Then a
squirrel appeared, to drag them from their cold storage. He carried
each by to his regular dining-place. Clasping the cone vertically,
base up, in his fore paws, he snipped off the scales and ate the seeds
beneath in regular order, turning the cone as he proceeded as though
it were an ear of corn and he were eating the kernels.
I have often waited to see a squirrel go for something to eat after a
snowstorm. This he did in a matter-of-fact way. Without hunting or
hesitation he went hopping across the snow to a spot immediately above
his supplies, where he at once pawed his way down into the snow and
came up with a cone.
In rambling the woods I have often heard these squirrels barking and
"chickareeing" with wild hilarity, apparently from the pure joy of
living. Then again they proclaimed my distant approach, or presence,
with unnecessary vigor. The energetic protest they make against the
trespasser in their woods, is often, if not always, taken by big game
as a warning. Generally on hearing this the game will be all alert for
some seconds, and occasionally will move off to a more commanding
position. Sometimes birds will stop and listen when this tree-top
sentinel shouts warnings which have often saved big game from being
shot. Most hunters hate this squirrel.
There are brief periods in winter when these squirrels disappear for
days at a time. The kind of weather does not appear to be a
determining factor in this. During this disappearance they probably
take a hibernating sleep; anyway, I have in a few cases seen them so
soundly asleep that the fall and fracture of their tree did not awaken
them. They sometimes live, temporarily at least, in holes in the
ground, but the home is usually in a hollow limb or a cavern in a
tree-trunk well toward the top of the tree. Commonly four young ones
are brought forth at a birth. Cunning, happy midgets they are when
first beginning their acquaintance with the wooded world, and taking
sun baths on a high limb of their house tree.
Just how long they live no one appears to know. As pets they have been
kept for ten years. A pair lived near my cabin for eight years, then
disappeared. Whether they migrated or met a violent death, I never
knew. There was another pair in the grove that I kept track of through
eleven years. This grove was a wedge-shaped one of about ten acres
that stood between two brooks. With but few exceptions, the trees were
lodge-pole pine. My acquaintance with the pair began one day in early
autumn. Both set up such a wild chatter as I approached the grove that
I first thought that something was attacking them. Seated upon a log
close to the tree which they occupied, I watched them for three or
four hours. They in turn watched me. Failing to dislodge me by
vehement denunciation, they quieted down and eyed me with intense
curiosity. I sat perfectly still. Evidently they were greatly puzzled
and unable to make out what I was and what of all things on earth it
could be that I wanted. With beady eyes they stared at me from a
number of positions in several trees. Occasionally in the midst of
this silent, eager eying one would break out in a half-repressed and
drawling bark that was unconsciously, nervously repeated at brief
intervals.
The next day they silently allowed me to take a seat. After a brief
stare they grew bold with curiosity and descended to the earth for a
closer investigation. Pausing for a sharp look, both suddenly exploded
with wild chatter and fled with a retchy barking to the tree-tops. In
less than a month they took peanuts from my fingers. They were easily
terrified by a loud noise or sudden movement. One day an acquaintance
came to see me while I was in the grove with the squirrels. By way of
heralding his approach, he flung a club which fell with a crash upon a
brush pile alongside these most nervous fellows. They fled in terror,
and it was two or three days before they would come near me again.
One year the grove cone-crop was a total failure. As a result, Mr. and
Mrs. Frémont temporarily abandoned their old home and moved to new
quarters on a mountainside about half a mile distant. The day they
moved I was by the brook, watching a water-ouzel, when they chanced to
cross on a fallen log near-by. In passing, one paused to give a hasty,
half-glad, half-frightened, chattery bark of recognition. They
hastened across the grassy open beyond as though they felt themselves
in danger when out of the woods.
They made a home in an old snag, using places that were, I think,
formerly used by woodpeckers. The afternoon of their arrival they
commenced to harvest cones, which were abundant on the spruce trees
around them. I often wondered if they made a preliminary trip and
located a food-supply before moving, or if they simply started forth
and stopped at the first favorable place.
The following summer they returned to their old quarters in the grove.
The first time that I saw them they were sitting upon a log daintily
making a breakfast of fresh mushrooms. They often ate the inner bark
of pine twigs, and once I saw one of them eating wild raspberries. I
never saw these, or any Frémont squirrel, robbing or trying to rob a
bird's nest, and as I have never noticed a bird disturbed by their
presence, I believe they are not guilty of this serious offense, as
are most kinds of squirrels.
Through eleven years I occasionally fed them. Apparently full-grown at
the time of our first meeting, they were active and agile to the last.
After eleven years they showed but few and minor signs of aging.
One was shot by a gun-carrying visitor. While I was dismissing the
gunner, my attention was attracted by the wailing of her mate when he
found her lifeless body. His grief was most pitiful; among wild birds
and animals I have never seen anything so pathetic. Almost humanly he
stared at his mate; he fondled her and tried to coax her back to life,
at times almost pleading and wailing. When I carried her off for
burial he sat moveless and dazed. The following day I searched the
grove, whistling and calling, but I never saw him again.
The Estes Park Region
The Estes Park Region
The Estes Park region became famous for its scenery during the height
of the Rocky Mountain gold-fever half a century ago. While Colorado
was still a Territory, its scenes were visited by Helen Hunt, Anna
Dickinson, and Isabella Bird, all of whom sang the praises of this
great hanging wild garden.
The park is a natural one,--a mingling of meadows, headlands, groves,
winding streams deeply set in high mountains whose forested steeps and
snowy, broken tops stand high and bold above its romantic loveliness.
It is a marvelous grouping of gentleness and grandeur; an eloquent,
wordless hymn, that is sung in silent, poetic pictures; a sublime
garden miles in extent and all arranged with infinite care.
Grace Greenwood once declared that the skyline of this region, when
seen from out in the Great Plains, loomed up like the Alps from the
plains of Lombardy.
Long's Peak, "King of the Rocky Mountains," dominates these scenes.
Around this peak, within a radius of fifteen miles, is a striking and
composite grouping of the best features of the Rocky Mountain scenery.
Again and again I have explored every nook and height of this scenic
mountain wilderness, enjoying its forests, lakes, and cañons during
every month of the year.
Frost and fire have had much to do with its lines and landscapes. Ice
has wrought bold sculptures, while fire made the graceful open
gardens, forest-framed and flower-filled in the sun. The region was
occupied by the Ice King during the last glacial period. Many rounded
peaks, U-shaped, polished gorges, enormous morainal embankments,
upwards of fifty lakes and tarns--almost the entire present striking
landscape--were shaped through the ages by the slow sculpturing of the
ice. Forest fires have made marked changes, and many of the wide
poetic places--the grassy parks--in the woods are largely due to
severe and repeated burnings.
[Illustration: LONG'S PEAK AND ESTES PARK]
This locality has been swept by fire again and again. Most of the
forest is less than two hundred years of age. During the past two
hundred years, beginning with 1707, there have been no less than seven
forest fires, two of which appear to have swept over most of the
region. There probably were other fires, the records of which have
vanished. The dates of these scourges and in many cases the extent of
their ravages were burned into the annual rings of a number of trees
which escaped with their lives and lived on, carrying these
fire-records down to us. These fires, together with the erosion which
followed, had something to do with the topography and the scenery of
this section. There are a few ugly scars from recent fires, but most
of the burned areas were reforested with reasonable promptness. Some
crags, however, may have lost for centuries their trees and
vegetation. Other areas, though losing trees, gained in meadows. I am
strongly inclined to ascribe much of the openness--the existence
even--of Estes, Allen's, and Middle Parks to repeated fires, some of
which probably were severe. Thus we may look down from the heights
and enjoy the mingling beauty and grandeur of forest and meadow and
still realize that fire, with all its destructiveness, may help to
make the gardens of the earth.
A dozen species of trees form the forests of this section. These
forests, delightfully inviting, cover the mountains below the altitude
of eleven thousand feet. This rich robe, draping from the shoulders to
the feet of the mountains, appears a dark purple from a distance. A
great robe it hangs over every steep and slope, smooth, wrinkled, and
torn; pierced with pinnacles and spires, gathered on terraces and
headlands, uplifted on the swells, and torn by cañons. Here and there
this forest is beautified with a ragged-edged grass-plot, a lake, or a
stream that flows, ever singing, on.
The trees which brave the heights and maintain the forest frontier
among the storms, are the Engelmann spruce, sub-alpine fir, arctic
willow, black birch, quaking aspen, and limber pine. For the most
part, timber-line is a trifle above eleven thousand feet, but in a few
places the trees climb up almost to twelve thousand. Most of the
trees at timber-line are distorted and stunted by the hard conditions.
Snow covers and crushes them; cold chains their activity through the
greater part of the year; the high winds drain their sap, persecute
them with relentless sand-blasts, and break their limbs and roots.
Among glacier-records in the Rocky Mountains those on the slopes of
Long's Peak are pre-eminent for magnitude and interest. On the western
slope of this peak the ice stream descended into the upper end of
Glacier Gorge, where it united with streams from Mt. Barrat and
McHenry Peak. Here it flowed northward for two miles through the now
wonderfully ice-carved Glacier Gorge. Beyond the gorge heavy ice
rivers flooded down to this ice stream from Thatch-Top, Taylor, Otis,
and Hallett Peaks. A mile beyond the gorge it was deflected to the
east by the solid slopes of Flat-Top and Mt. Hallett. It descended to
about the altitude of eight thousand feet. Along its lower course, the
lateral moraine on the south side dammed up a number of small water
channels that drained the northern slope of Battle Mountain.
On the northern slope of the Peak a boulder field begins at the
altitude of thirteen thousand feet and descends over a wide field,
then over a terraced slope. Though probably not of great depth, it
will average a mile wide and extends four miles down the slope. It
contains an immense amount of material, enough to form a great
mountain-peak. Probably the greatest array of glacial débris is the
Mills Moraine on the east side of the Peak. This covers several
thousand acres, consists of boulders, rock-fragments, and rock-flour,
and in places is several hundred feet deep.
Where has all this wreckage come from? Some geologists have expressed
the opinion that ages ago Long's Peak was two thousand or so feet
higher. At the time of its great height, Long's Peak was united with
the near surrounding peaks,--Meeker, Washington, and Storm,--and all
stood together as one peak. The present shattered condition of these
peaks, their crumbling nature, the mountain masses of débris on the
slopes below, all of which must have come from heights above, suggest
this explanation. But to take it as it now is, to stand on this
crumbling peak to-day and look down upon the lakes, moraines, polished
gorges,--all the vast and varied glacial works and ruins,--is for the
geological student startling and profoundly eloquent.
Above the altitude of thirteen thousand feet are many fields of
"eternal snow," and a dozen miles to the south of Long's Peak is the
Arapahoe Glacier; while northward are the Andrews, Sprague, and
Hallett Glaciers within ten miles. Though all these are small, each
exhibits in a striking manner the Ice Age in a nutshell. On the east
side of Long's Peak, too, is a moving ice-field that might well be
classed as a glacier. By this ice begins the upper extent of the Mills
Moraine, and in the gorge just below--one of the most utterly wild
places on the earth--is Chasm Lake.
Most of the glacier lakes are in gorges or on terraces between the
altitudes of eleven thousand and twelve thousand feet. Almost all
have a slope or steep rising above them, down which the ice descended
while gouging out their basins.
Grand Lake, one of the largest reservoirs constructed by the Ice King
in the Rocky Mountains, is three miles in length and one in width, cut
into bed-rock. This lake is less than nine thousand feet above the
sea. It is in the eastern extremity of Middle Park, a few miles to the
west of Long's Peak. Great peaks rising from it, a great moraine
sweeping along its northerly and westerly shores, it peacefully shows
the titanic beautifying landscape labors of the ice.
The glacial winter is over. The present snowfall over this section is
about one half that of the Alps. Here snow-line is thirteen thousand
feet above the sea, while in the Alps it is four thousand feet lower.
Down from the heights of all the high peaks pour many white streams
ever singing the song of the sea.
In these mountains there are many deep gorges and cañons. Most of
these are short and ice-polished. The Thompson Cañon is one of the
longest and finest. Its twenty miles of walled length is full of
scenic contrasts and picturesque varieties. The lovely mingles with
the wild. In places its walls stand two thousand feet above the river
and the daisies. The walls are many-formed, rugged, polished,
perpendicular, terraced, and statuesque, and are adorned with panels
of rusty veneer, with decorative lichen tracery or with vertical
meadows of velvet moss. Blossoms fill many niches with poetry, while
shrubbery, concealing in its clinging the cracks in the wall, forms
many a charming festoon.
In some stretches the parallel walls go straight away, well separated;
then they curve, or crowd so closely that there is barely room for the
river and the road. At intervals the walls sweep outward in short,
grand semicircles and inclose ideal wild gardens of pines, grass,
flowers, and the winding river. The river is ever varying its speed,
its surface, and its song. Here it is a boulder-framed mirror
reflecting the aspens and the sky, there a stretch of foam-flow; now
it rests in a wild pool pierced with sharp rocks, now it hurries on to
plunge and roar over a terrace of rocks, then on, always on, toward
the sea.
Speckled and rainbow trout dart in the streams. Mountain sheep climb
and pose on the crags; bear, deer, and mountain lions are still
occasionally seen prowling the woods or hurrying across the meadows.
The wise coyote is also occasionally seen darting under cover, and he
is frequently heard during the night. Here among the evergreens is
found that wee and audacious bit of intensely interesting and animated
life, the Frémont squirrel, and also, one of the dearest of all small
animals, the merry chipmunk. Within this territory are a number of
beaver colonies, whose ways I have described in earlier chapters.
The entire region is a wild-flower garden. Bloom-time lasts all summer
long. The scores of streams which splash down from the snows are
fringed with ferns and blossoms. There are many areas petalled with
red, blue, purple, and gold. Difference of altitude, topography, and
moisture-distribution induce nearly a thousand varieties to bloom in
and to color this glad wild garden. July is white with Mariposa
lilies. Wild roses, sweet peas, daisies, tiger lilies, violets,
orchids, primroses, fringed blue gentians give their color and their
perfume to the friendly air. Here flourishes the Rocky Mountain
columbine.
The region is gladdened with many kinds of birds. On the heights lives
the serene, self-contained ptarmigan; the "camp-bird" resides in the
upland forests; hummingbirds flit here and there; the robin sings and
re-sings its song over the lowlands; blackbirds swing on the willows
by the brooks; the wise magpie spreads his spotted wings and explores
every corner. Along the cascading streams is the darling bird of the
Rockies, the cheerful water-ouzel. Here, too, the hermit thrush charms
the air with a wonderful wealth of melody, and here the solitaire,
perhaps the most inspiring of all songsters, pours his divine melody
amid pines, crags, and the sounds of winds and falling waters.
Numerous trails wind through this region, and over these one may visit
Specimen Mountain, an old volcano, Fern and Odessa Lakes,--splendid
tree-bordered alpine tarns,--Wild Basin, Locke Vale, Wind River,
Glacier Gorge, and the summit of Long's Peak. The Flat-Top trail is
the greatest one; this touches a variety of scenes, crosses the
continental divide at twelve thousand feet, and connects Grand Lake
and Estes Park.
This splendid natural recreation-ground might well "be held for the
use of the people." It is close to the geographical centre of the
country, is easily accessible, has an excellent climate, and as a
National Park it would become a scenic resource of enormous and
exhaustless richness.
THE END
Index
Index
Allen's Park, 339.
Andrews Glacier, 343.
Arapahoe Glacier, 251, 255, 260, 261, 343.
Arapahoe Peak, 260.
Ash, seeds, 296.
Aspen, after a fire, 160.
Aspen Gulch, 13-15.
Avalanches. _See_ Rock avalanche, Snowslides.
Basswood, seeds, 300.
Bears, escaping from a forest fire, 143, 144;
a mother and cubs, 240.
Bears, black, two cubs and a forest fire, 144;
attacked by wasps, 180;
carrying pine cones, 301.
Bears, grizzly, and a forest fire, 144;
and roasted deer after the fire, 149, 150;
two pet cubs, 207-209;
the further history of Johnny, 209-219;
curiosity, 214;
agility, 215.
Beaver, the Moraine Colony, 19-46;
characteristics and usefulness, 19, 40, 41, 46, 47;
dams, 21, 31-34, 45, 53, 54;
houses, 21, 22, 31, 42, 44, 54;
felling trees, 21, 24, 25, 58-65;
harvest piles, 22, 41, 42, 56, 57, 65, 66;
coöperation, 22-24, 43, 44;
working by daylight, 23, 62;
play, 23;
transporting logs and branches, 23, 24, 54-62;
village destroyed by fire, 26, 27;
attacked by mountain lion, 28, 29, 35, 36;
attacked by coyote, 29, 30, 36;
journeying by water and by land, 30, 31;
migration from ruined village, 29-31;
raided by trappers, 31;
need of ponds, 34, 35;
house dynamited, 35;
young, 36, 37;
a migration witnessed, 38, 39;
aged beaver, 38, 39, 51, 52, 63-65;
explorations of old males, 39, 40;
the first conservationist, 40, 41;
making a new pond, 44, 45;
pitchy wood and dead wood avoided, 45, 46;
canals, 45, 56;
ford, 45, 52, 66;
the Spruce Tree Colony, 51-67;
tunnels, 53;
log slides, 54-56;
the Island Colony, 61, 62;
ready for winter, 66.
Beetles, depredations in forests, 174-181, 195.
Big Thompson River, 345.
Big tree, immune from insects, 173;
seeds, 299.
Bighorn. _See_ Sheep, mountain.
Birds, of Estes Park, 347.
Blizzard, 311-316.
Borers, depredations in forests, 182, 195.
Camp-bird. _See_ Jay, Rocky Mountain.
Camp-fires, as origins of forest fires, 152, 153, 155, 156.
Carpenter, Prof. L. G., on forests, 127.
Chapman, Frank M., 200.
Chasm Lake, 343.
Cherry, seed-sowing, 298, 299.
Chipmunk, 325.
Cimarron, 242.
Clouds, of mountain-tops, 80, 81;
a snow-cloud, 81-84.
Cocoanut, 302.
Conifers, seed-distribution, 297, 298.
Cottonwood, seeds, 296, 301.
Couple, elderly, in a log house, 110-112.
Court-House Rock, 242, 243.
Coyote, attacking beaver, 29, 30, 36;
fleeing from a forest-fire, 143;
after the fire, 149.
Deer, in a forest fire, 142, 143.
_Dendroctonus_, 196.
Dogs, story of a tramp dog, 93-105;
Scotch and the bear Johnny, 213;
Scotch in a mountain blizzard, 309-320.
Electrical storms, 85-88.
Elk, in a forest fire, 142.
Erosion, after forest fires, 165, 166;
by glaciers, 251;
a study of, 271, 272, 281-286.
Estes Park, glaciers in, 260, 338, 341-343;
attractions, 337, 338, 348;
forest fires, 339;
forests, 340, 341;
Long's Peak, 341-343;
lakes, 343, 344;
streams and cañons, 344, 345;
animal life, 346;
flowers, 346, 347;
birds, 347;
trails, 347.
Fern Lake, 347.
Fir, Douglas, 279.
Fires. _See_ Forest Fires.
Flat-Top, 341, 347.
Flowers, of Estes Park, 346, 347.
Foot, an injured, 233, 234, 241-243.
Forest fires, watching, 139-170;
varying speed of, 141, 142, 167;
wild animals in, 142-145;
rarely make a clean sweep, 145, 146;
dead trees burning after, 146, 147;
extent, 147;
destroy humus, 148, 149;
loss of animal life in, 149;
storm of ashes after a fire, 150, 151;
upbuilding after, 152;
origins of, 152, 153, 155, 156, 162, 163, 176;
methods of fighting, 152, 153, 163-165;
trees standing after, 154, 158;
geysers of flame, 158, 159, 169;
duration of, 161, 162;
protection against, 163-165;
erosion after, 165, 166;
explosions of rock caused by, 169, 170;
interrelation with destructive insects, 173, 174, 186;
wood preserved by, 187.
Forests, as wood-producers, 124;
as water-distributors, 124, 125;
other uses, 125;
as moderators of climate, 125, 126;
as windbreaks, 126;
delaying evaporation, 126-129;
necessary to agriculture, 127, 128;
as reservoirs, 128-130;
as regulators of stream-flow, 130;
as makers of soil, 131, 132;
as bird-shelters, 132, 133;
as sanitary agents, 133;
evils following destruction of, 134;
preëminent in promoting the general welfare, 134, 135;
insect enemies of, 173-189;
observations of a forested and a deforested region during
a rain, 267-287;
the forest floor, 273, 274.
Fort Garland, 112, 113, 118, 119.
Fungi, enemies of trees, 183, 184.
Fungus, false-tinder, 184.
Glacier Gorge, 341, 347.
Glaciers, work of, 247-250;
Muir and Henderson on, 250;
rate of movement, 251;
Arapahoe, 251, 255, 260, 261;
grinding and excavating powers, 251-253;
moraines, 253-255;
lakes made by, 253, 343;
strange freight, 255, 256;
mineral wealth, 256;
making soil, 257;
formation, 258, 259;
in the Rocky Mountains, 258, 260-263, 338, 341-343;
bergschlunds and crevasses, 260, 261;
pleasures of investigation, 263.
Grand Lake, 348.
Grand River, 309;
forest fires on, 140-153.
Granite Pass, wind in, 75-77.
Greenwood, Grace, 337.
Ground-hog, 282.
Grouse, fleeing from a forest fire, 144.
Hallett Glacier, 343.
Hallett Peak, 341.
Henderson, Junius, quoted, 250.
Horne's Peak, 102.
Ice, climbing with a dog over, 310, 314, 317-320.
Insects, in the forest, 173-189;
interrelation with forest-fires, 173, 174, 186;
beetles, 174-181;
weevils, 182;
borers, 182;
serial attacks, 182, 183;
interrelation with parasitic plants, 183, 184;
seriousness of their ravages, 185, 186, 189;
control of depredations, 187-189;
woodpeckers the enemies of, 193-204.
Ironwood, seeds, 300.
Jay, crested, 149.
Jay, Rocky Mountain, _or_ gray jay, _or_ camp-bird, 149, 180, 223.
Lake City, 223.
Landslides, a night and a day of, 232-239;
on a deforested slope, 281, 282;
a liquefied landslide, 283, 284. _See_ Rock avalanche.
Leadville, 98-100.
Lightning, 85, 86;
trees struck by, 175, 176, 278.
Linden, seeds, 300.
Lion, mountain, attacking beaver, 28, 29, 35, 36;
adventure, 102;
fleeing from a forest fire, 143.
Little Cimarron River, 228, 234, 240-242.
Locke Vale, 347.
Locust, honey, seeds and pods, 299, 300.
Log, with a cargo of seeds, 292-294.
Long's Peak, 310, 338;
wind on, 75-78;
area of summit, 78;
altitude, 85;
thunder-storms on, 85;
forest fires seen from, 140;
Mills Moraine, 263, 342;
glaciers, 341;
boulder field, 342;
geological history, 342, 343.
McHenry Peak, 341.
Magpie, 149, 347.
Mangrove, seeding, 302.
Maple, red, seeds, 296.
Maple, silver, seeds, 295.
Middle Park, 339, 344.
Mills Moraine, 263, 342, 343.
Mississippi River, origin of its mud, 285;
a seed-laden log on, 292-294.
Missouri River, its channel full of dissolved Rocky Mountains, 284.
Mt. Barrat, 341.
Mt. Coxcomb, crumbling character of, 228-230;
a night climb in the rain, 228-240.
Mt. Hallett, 341.
Mt. Meeker, 207, 342.
Mt. Teller, 88.
Muir, John, quoted, 128, 250, 327.
Night, mountain-climbing by, 226-232.
Nuthatch, 199, 200.
Nuts, 293-295.
Orton, Edward, Jr., quoted, 263.
Otis Peak, 341.
Ouzel. _See_ Water-ouzel.
Parks, mountain, openness caused by forest fires, 339.
Persimmons, 299.
Pine, lodge-pole, 153, 157, 160;
spectacular death of, 158, 159;
destroyed by beetles, 178;
seeding, 298.
Pine, Western yellow, as a fire-fighter, 160, 161;
killed by beetles, 174-176.
Poisoning, from a spring, 109-111.
Poudre River, 95.
Ptarmigan, 347.
Rabbit-Ear Range, 140.
Rain, effects on forested and deforested slopes, 267-287.
Ridgway, 226, 233, 243.
Robin, 270.
Rock avalanche, 113-115.
St. Vrain River, a rainy day at the source, 267-287;
the two branches, 271.
San Juan Mountains, snowslides in, 3-15.
San Luis Valley, 117.
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 101, 109.
Scotch, the collie, and the bear cub Johnny, 213;
in a mountain blizzard, 309-320.
Seeds of trees, many devices for sowing, 291;
log cargo of, 292-294;
nuts, 293-295;
winged, 295-298;
pulp-covered, 298, 299;
other wind-carried seeds, 299, 300;
hooked, 301;
carried by animals, 301;
catapulted, 301;
water-carried, 302;
prodigality of nature in regard to, 302-305.
Sheep, mountain, _or_ bighorn, in a whirlwind, 72, 73;
in a forest fire, 143.
Sierra Blanca, 110;
climbing, 112-117.
Snow slides, studying, 3;
an adventure with a slide, 4-15.
Snow-storm, climbing above a, 81-83;
a mountain blizzard, 311-316.
Solitaire, 287, 347.
Specimen Mountain, 347.
Spring, a poisonous, 109.
Spruce, Engelmann, 153, 155, 273.
Squirrel, Frémont, an interview, 276, 277;
character and manners, 323, 324;
food and harvesting, 324-329, 333;
hibernation, 329, 330;
homes, 330;
young, 330;
longevity, 330, 333;
story of a pair, 330-334.
Sycamore, seeds, 297.
Taylor Peak, 341.
Thatch-Top, 341.
Thompson Cañon, 344, 345.
Thrush, Audubon's hermit, 287, 347.
Trees, relations to mankind, 123, 134, 135;
as sanitary agents, 133;
medicines and foods produced by, 133, 134;
uprooted and transported by a landslide, 236-239;
up a tree in a storm, 276-278;
seeds and seeding, 291-305.
_See also_ Forests.
Turret-Top, 243.
Uncompahgre Mountains, trip through, 223-243.
Uncompahgre Peak, 224.
Wasps, feeding on grubs, 179;
and bear, 180.
Water-ouzel, 269-271, 347.
Weather, of alpine zone of Rocky Mountains, 71-89.
Weevils, in forest-trees, 182, 191.
Wet Mountain valley, 101.
Wild Basin, 347.
Willows, seeds, 296.
Wind River, 347.
Winds, on mountain-tops, 72-80;
drying powers of, 126, 127;
a mountain blizzard, 311-316.
Witch-hazel, flowers and seeds, 301.
Woodpecker, Batchelder, 197.
Woodpecker, downy, the most useful bird citizen, 193, 200;
a downy at work, 201-204.
Woodpecker, hairy, 197, 198.
Woodpeckers, value as destroyers of noxious insects, 193-198;
holes, 198, 199;
winter lodgings, 199;
nesting-holes, 199, 200.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
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* * * * *
THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN
By MARY AUSTIN
This is a book of unique interest about out-door life in the arid
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"What John Muir has done for the western slopes of the Sierras,
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