34 Trails to Woods and Waters 



a fair sized drift. But the ice storms I still 

 feared, for they occasionally bowed me down 

 so that they nearly broke my back. 



" About this time, I bore my first cone, 

 and if it needed anything more to make me 

 vain, it was this. My parent, the great pine 

 at the edge of the woods, had been rattling 

 down cones ever since I could remember, and 

 I had never had even a sign of a cone. When 

 that first cone fell, I felt as though I had 

 parted company with the most precious thing 

 in the world, but when I found that they 

 came every second year, I was comforted. 



" When I was about forty years old, I had 

 a narrow escape from destruction. Up to 

 this time, all the men that I had known had 

 been red men, and I wish they had been the 

 only men the forest had ever known. If they 

 had been, it would not be the sorry sight it 

 is now. These quiet, nature-loving men came 

 and went under the branches of the forest as 

 silently as the deer and the panther. They 

 seemed a part of the woods, and we looked 

 for their coming and going as we did that of 



