shoreline of the sea. Here and there were lone scout trees in
advance of the ranks. They were twisted and dwarfed, misshapen,
grotesque.

There were wide, naked stretches bare of snow. Great drifts lay in the
woods; the deep, narrow canyons were piled full of it. Many of these
drifts would last far into the following summer; a few would be
perpetual. At the approach of summer, such drifts turn to ice through
frequent thawing and freezing, since the surface snow, melting under
the glare of the summer sun, seeps down through the mass beneath in
daytime, and freezes again at night. From such drifts flow icy streams
for the leaping trout. Countless sparkling springs gurgled forth at
the foot of the slopes.

Here I had my first lessons in conservation and learned that it is
indeed an ill wind that does no good. Here nature hoards her savings
in snowbanks. To these savings she adds constantly throughout the
winter. Long I sat upon a promontory and marveled. Dimly, only, did I
grasp the significance of what lay before me! The ranks of primeval
forest waiting to aid civilization; snow, that white magic eventually
destined to water crops on the distant plains; and, above all, woods,
the final refuge of the big game; the sanctuary of the birds.

Everywhere were scattered unnamed lakes. These edged out and around
the rock peninsulas, folded back into dark coves and swung out of sight
behind the timbered bends. Some were almost pinched in half by the
crowding cliffs till they formed giant hour-glasses; again they bulged
and overflowed like streams at high water. I began to name them
according to their shape. "Hourglass," of course; the one that bulged
out at one end was surely a plump "Pear"--yes, and
"Dog-with-three-legs"! My imagination was recovering.

For miles I followed the strange, fantastic timberline. Occasionally I
found stunted little trees scarcely knee high, peeping through the
crushing weight of snow that had smothered them, even throughout the
summer. I cut several trees to count the rings of growth. I found
trees growing close together and about the same size, with centuries of
variation in age. One, that had been broken off by a rock slide, had
two hundred and ninety-six annual rings. It had grown in a sheltered
nook. Ten yards away another, much smaller, but growing upon an
exposed, rocky point, was no higher than my head, yet I counted five
hundred and seven rings; for half a thousand y