g, a big tree with a fluted full-length
mantle of ice.

Along the way were extensive areas covered with the ruins of
fire-killed trees. Most of the forest fires which had caused these
were the result of carelessness. The timber destroyed by these fires
had been needed by thousands of home-builders. The robes of beauty
which they had burned from the mountain-sides are a serious loss.
These fire ruins preyed upon me, and I resolved to do something to
save the remaining forests. The opportunity came shortly after the
resolution was made.

Two days before reaching the objective point, farthest south, my food
gave out, and I fasted. But as soon as I reached the end, I started
to descend the heights, and very naturally knocked at the door of the
first house I came to, and asked for something to eat. I supposed I
was at a pioneer's cabin. A handsome, neatly dressed young lady came
to the door, and when her eyes fell upon me she blushed and then
turned pale. I was sorry that my appearance had alarmed her, but I
repeated my request for something to eat. Just then, through the
half-open door behind the young lady, came the laughter of children,
and a glance into the room told me that I was before a mountain
schoolhouse. By this time the teacher, to whom I was talking, startled
me by inviting me in. As I sat eating a luncheon to which the teacher
and each one of the six school-children contributed, the teacher
explained to me that she was recently from the East, and that I so
well fitted her ideas of a Western desperado that she was frightened
at first. When I finished eating, I made my first after-dinner speech;
it was also my first attempt to make a forestry address. One point I
tried to bring out was concerning the destruction wrought by forest
fires. Among other things I said: "During the past few years in
Colorado, forest fires, which ought never to have been started, have
destroyed many million dollars' worth of timber, and the area
over which the fires have burned aggregates twenty-five thousand
square miles. This area of forest would put on the equator an
evergreen-forest belt one mile wide that would reach entirely around
the world. Along with this forest have perished many of the animals
and thousands of beautiful birds who had homes in it."

I finally bade all good-bye, went on my way rejoicing, and in due
course arrived at Denver, where a record of one of my longest winter
excursions was written.

In order to giv