Bife on tty (Roches 



viewed many patriarchs, had stories from sap- 

 lings, examined the mouldy, musty records of 

 many a family tree, and dug up some buried his- 

 tory. The geologist wanted in story form a synop- 

 sis of what the records said and what the trees 

 told me, so I gave him this account : 



" We climbed in here some time after the retreat 

 of the last Ice King and found aspen and lodge- 

 pole pine in possession. These trees fought us 

 for several generations, but we finally drove them 

 out. For ages the Engelmann spruce family has 

 had undisputed possession of this slope. We 

 stand amid three generations of mouldering an- 

 cestors, and beneath these is the sacred mould 

 of older generations still. 



" One spring, when most of the present grown- 

 up trees were very young, the robins, as they flew 

 north, were heard talking of strange men who 

 were exploring the West Indies. A few years later 

 came the big fire over the Rockies, which for 

 months choked the sky with smoke. Fire did not 

 get into our gulch, but from birds and bears which 

 crowded into it we learned that straggling trees 

 and a few groves on the Rockies were all that had 



250 



