46 Outlook to Nature 



een miles to the southeast. From this destina- 

 tion, I drove far into the great forest, over 

 volcano dust that floated through the woods 

 like smoke as it was stirred up by our horses 

 and wagon-wheels. I was a guest for the night 

 in one of those luxurious lodges which true 

 nature-lovers, wishing wholly to escape the 

 affairs of cities, build in remote and inaccessible 

 places. The lodge stood on a low promontory, 

 around three sides of which a deep swift moun- 

 tain stream ran in wild tumult. Giant shafts 

 of trees, such shafts as one sees only in the 

 stupendous forests of the far West, shot straight 

 into the sky from the very cornices of the house. 

 It is always a marvel to the easterner how shafts 

 of such extraordinary height could have been 

 nourished by the very thin and narrow crowns 

 that they bear. One always wonders, also, at 

 the great distance the sap-water must carry its 

 freight of mineral from root to leaf and its 

 heavier freight from leaf to root. 



We were up before the dawn. We made a 

 pot of coffee, and the horses were ready, fine 

 mounts, accustomed to woods trails and hard 



