on 



been blown off by the wind or cut off by the wind- 

 blown gravel. Most of the exposed trees are des- 

 titute of bark on the portion of the trunk that 

 faces these winter winds. Some of the dead stand- 

 ing trees are carved into strange totem-poles by 

 the sand-blasts of many fierce storms. With all 

 the trees warped or distorted, the effect of timber- 

 line is weird and strange. 



Harriet and I got off the ponies the better to 

 examine some of the storm-beaten trees. Harriet 

 was attracted to a few dwarf spruces that were 

 standing in a drift of recently fallen snow. Al- 

 though these dwarfed little trees were more than a 

 hundred years old, they were so short that the little 

 mountain-climber who stood by them was taller 

 than they. After stroking one of the trees with 

 her hand, Harriet stood fora time in silence, then 

 out of her warm childish nature she said, "What 

 brave little trees to live up here where they have 

 to stand all the time in the snow ! " Timber-line, 

 with its strange tree statuary and treeless snowy 

 peaks and crags rising above it, together with 

 its many kinds of bird and animal life and its 

 flower-fringed snowdrifts, is one of nature's most 



