e walked when we could. It was
strange to go through that green wonderland and find not a leaf the
horses could eat. It was all moss, ferns, and evergreens.

From the semi-arid lands east of the Cascades to the rank vegetation of
the Pacific side was an extraordinary change. Trees grew to enormous
sizes. In addition to the great cedars, there were hemlocks fifteen and
eighteen feet in circumference. Only the strong trees survive in these
valleys, and by that ruthless selection of nature weak young saplings
die early. So we found cedar, hemlock, lodge-pole pine, white and
Douglas fir, cottonwood, white pine, spruce, and alder of enormous size.

The brake ferns were the most common, often growing ten feet tall. We
counted five varieties of ferns growing in profusion, among them brake
ferns, sword-ferns, and maidenhair, most beautiful and luxuriant. The
maidenhair fern grew in masses, covering dead trunks of trees and making
solid walls of delicate green beside the trail.

"Silent Lawrie" knew them all. He knew every tiniest flower and plant
that thrust its head above the leaf-mould. He saw them all, too.
Peanuts, his horse, made his own way now, and the naturalist sat a
trifle sideways in his saddle and showed me his discoveries.

I am no naturalist, so I rode behind him, notebook in hand, and I made a
list something like this. If there are any errors they are not the
naturalist's, but mine, because, although I have written a great deal on
a horse's back, I am not proof against the accident of Whiskers stirring
a yellow-jackets' nest on the trail, or of Buddy stumbling, weary beast
that he was, over a root on the path.

This is my list: red-stemmed dogwood; bunchberries, in blossom on the
higher reaches, in bloom below; service-berries, salmon-berries;
skunk-cabbage, beloved by bears, and the roots of which the Indians
roast and eat; above four thousand feet, white rhododendrons, and, above
four thousand five hundred feet, heather; hellebore also in the high
places; thimble-berries and red elderberries, tag-alder, red
honeysuckle, long stretches of willows in the creek-bottoms; vining
maples, too, and yew trees, the wood of which the Indians use for
making bows.

[Illustration: COPYRIGHT BY FRED H. KISER, PORTLAND, OREGON
_A field of bear-grass_]

Around Cloudy Pass we found the red monkey-flower. In different places
there was the wild parsnip; the ginger-plant, with its heart-shaped leaf
and blossom, buried in