TIMBER-LINE AND SUMMIT 129 



all the money of a millionaire be to me if it took me 

 away from the mountains that I love? No amount of 

 money in a business office could make up to me what I 

 would lose in giving up this country. No rich man 

 can get out of his money more satisfaction in life than 

 I find in these mountains; and here I mean to stay until 

 I die." 



Charlie is a strange, and even remarkable, combina- 

 tion. He loves steep mountains like another Whymper, 

 and is a very bold and level-headed climber. He loves 

 all animal life, and is not only a keen observer, but his 

 accuracy in observing is grateful and comforting. He 

 loves tree-life and plant-life with the taste of a born 

 botanist. He is a fine hunter and trapper, brave, but 

 sensibly cautious on the trail, and completely free from 

 the boastful and intolerant vein which spoils many a 

 good woodsman. Like most of the mountain men whom 

 I have known intimately, he is clean-minded and high- 

 minded, and as a narrator and describer I have never 

 among frontiersmen known his equal. When he tells a 

 story, he makes you see it as in a moving picture; and 

 he writes with wonderful ease. 



I urged Charlie to write out the fascinating stories 

 of adventure and chapters of wild-animal lore that he 

 gradually unfolded to me, and offer them to the maga- 

 zines which are always on the lookout to discover new 

 and fresh springs of literary refreshment. At first he 

 felt that he "could not write well enough"; but as a 

 matter of conscience and duty, both to him and the pub- 

 lic, I urged him until he took courage, and decided to try. 



