by wetting, so I had to
contrive a waterproof carrier for them. I hit upon a light rubber
blanket, which added practically no pounds or bulk to my pack, and in
it wrapped my perishables. It saved them more often than not, but even
it could not protect them in some predicaments.

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

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

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

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

"But I bet they soon will be!"

[Illustration: "See all fools ain't dead yit," he observed.]

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

CHAPTER SEVEN

GLACIERS AND FOREST FIRES

When I first came West, with my imagination fired by the reminiscent
tales of my mother and my father, and our pioneer neighbors, I looked
only for mountains made of gold, for roaming buffaloes and skulking
savages, for fierce wild beasts and mighty hunters. That