winds extensive forests are destroyed, the flames
leaping from tree to tree in continuous belts that go surging and racing
onward above the bending wood like prairie-grass fires. During the
calm season of Indian summer the fire creeps quietly along the ground,
feeding on the needles and cones; arriving at the foot of a tree, the
resiny bark is ignited and the heated air ascends in a swift current,
increasing in velocity and dragging the flames upward. Then the leaves
catch forming an immense column of fire, beautifully spired on the edges
and tinted a rose-purple hue. It rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above
the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially at night. It
lasts, however, only a few seconds, vanishing with magical rapidity, to
be succeeded by others along the fire-line at irregular intervals, tree
after tree, upflashing and darting, leaving the trunks and branches
scarcely scarred. The heat, however, is sufficient to kill the tree and
in a few years the bark shrivels and falls off. Forests miles in extent
are thus killed and left standing, with the branches on, but peeled
and rigid, appearing gray in the distance like misty clouds. Later the
branches drop off, leaving a forest of bleached spars. At length the
roots decay and the forlorn gray trunks are blown down during some
storm and piled one upon another, encumbering the ground until, dry and
seasoned, they are consumed by another fire and leave the ground ready
for a fresh crop.

In sheltered lake-hollows, on beds of alluvium, this pine varies so far
from the common form that frequently it could be taken for a distinct
species, growing in damp sods like grasses from forty to eighty feet
high, bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts
more lively than any other tree in the woods. I frequently found
specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter. Being so
slender and at the same time clad with leafy boughs, it is often bent
and weighed down to the ground when laden with soft snow; thus forming
fine ornamental arches, many of them to last until the melting of the
snow in the spring.

The Mountain Pine

The Mountain Pine (Pinus monticola) is the noblest tree of the alpine
zone--hardy and long-lived towering grandly above its companions and
becoming stronger and more imposing just where other species begin to
crouch and disappear. At its best it is usually about ninety feet high
and five or six feet in