WATER BORDERS 



anglers have assisted nature of late, one 

 still comes upon roaring brown waters 

 where trout might very well be, but are 

 not. 



The highest limit of conifers in the 

 middle Sierras, the white bark pine is 

 not along the water border. They come 

 to it about the level of the heather, but 

 they have no such affinity for dampness as 

 the tamarack pines. Scarcely any bird- 

 note breaks the stillness of the timber-line, 

 but chipmunks inhabit here, as may be 

 guessed by the gnawed ruddy cones of the 

 pines, and lowering hours the woodchucks 

 come down to the water. On a little spit 

 of land running into Windy Lake we found 

 one summer the evidence of a tragedy ; a 

 pair of sheep's horns not fully grown caught 

 in the crotch of a pine where the living 

 sheep must have lodged them. The trunk 

 214 



