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restless little aspen. All timber-line trees are dwarfed and most
of them distorted. Conditions at timber-line are severe, but the
presence, in places, of young trees farthest up the slopes suggests
that these severe conditions may be developing hardier trees than any
that now are growing on this forest frontier. If this be true, then
timber-line on the Rockies is yet to gain a higher limit.

Since the day of "Pike's Peak or bust," fires have swept over more
than half of the primeval forest area in Colorado. Some years ago,
while making special efforts to prevent forest fires from starting, I
endeavored to find out the cause of these fires. I regretfully found
that most of them were the result of carelessness, and I also made a
note to the effect that there are few worse things to be guilty of
than carelessly setting fire to a forest. Most of these forest fires
had their origin from camp-fires which the departing campers had left
unextinguished. There were sixteen fires in one summer, which I
attributed to the following causes: campers, nine; cigar, one;
lightning, one; locomotive, one; stockmen, two; sheep-herders, one;
and sawmill, one.

Fires have made the Rocky Mountains still more rocky. In many places
the fires burn their way to solid rock. In other places the humus, or
vegetable mould, is partly consumed by fire, and the remainder is in a
short time blown away by wind or washed away by water. Fires often
leave only blackened granite rock behind, so that in many places they
have not only consumed the forests, but also the food upon which the
new forests might have fed. Many areas where splendid forests grew,
after being fire-swept, show only barren granite. As some of the
granite on the Rockies disintegrates slowly, it will probably require
several hundred years for Nature to resoil and reforest some of these
fire-scarred places. However, upon thousands of acres of the Rockies
millions of young trees are just beginning to grow, and if these trees
be protected from fire, a forest will early result.

I never see a little tree bursting from the earth, peeping confidently
up among the withered leaves, without wondering how long it will live
or what trials or triumphs it will have. I always hope that it will
find life worth living, and that it will live long to better and to
beautify the earth. I hope it will love the blue sky and the white
clouds passing by. I trust it will welcome all seasons and ever join
merr