AND ITS MESSAGE 



2. The trail also brings to me a 

 parable of our indebtedness to the 

 past. No man can walk mfle 

 after mile over a mountain trail 

 without a feeling of gratitude 

 toward the men who made it. 

 Resting beside the trail one day 

 I found myself thinking of the 

 Indians who first found the pass; 

 of the rough pioneer soldiers under 

 Kit Carson or some other fearless 

 leader who may have been the 

 first white men over the route; of 

 the cattle men who made it easier 

 and plainer; of John Muir in his 

 rugged youth, traveling alone with 

 his flour and his tea, and without 

 blankets that he might cany more 

 food and thus be able to penetrate 

 farther into the fastnesses of the 

 Sierra and bring back to the 

 people word of the wonders and 

 beauties he had seen. I thought 

 also of the foresters who had re- 



