Hunting in Many Lands 



the head off another big one, and he will no 

 longer attend the yearly meeting of his kind 

 at Rattlesnake Rock. 



Upon this stage of our journey we met no 

 one, yet the noble forest of spruce through 

 which we were traveling bore only too plainly 

 the signs of man's presence in the past, and of 

 his injurious disregard of the future. Every- 

 where were the traces of fire. The trees of 

 the Sierras, at the elevation at which we were, 

 an altitude of 8,000 or 10,000 feet, grow more 

 sparsely than in any forest to which we are 

 accustomed in the East. Their dry and unim- 

 peded spaces seem like heaven to the hunter 

 familiar only with the tangled and perplexing 

 undero-rowth of the " North Woods," where 

 the midday shadow, the thick underbrush, the 

 uneven and wet, mossy surface, except upon 

 some remote hardwood ridge, are the unvary- 

 ing characteristics. In the Rocky Mountains, 

 and that part of the Sierras with which I am 

 familiar, it is quite different. In California 

 the trees do not crowd and jostle one another, 

 but have regard for the sacredness of the per- 

 son so far as the mutual relation of one and 

 all are concerned. Broad patches of sunshine 

 beneath the trees encourage the growth of rich 



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