Btf * on 



grows better both with songs and with silence in 

 the pines. 



Here the energy and eloquence of silence was 

 at its best. That all-pervading presence called 

 silence has its happy home within the forest. Si- 

 lence sounds rhythmic to all, and attunes all minds 

 to the strange message, the rhapsody of the uni- 

 verse. Silence is almost as kind to mortals as its 

 sweet sister sleep. 



A primeval spruce forest crowds all the moun- 

 tain-slopes of the Uncompahgre region from an 

 altitude of eight thousand feet to timber-line. So 

 dense is this forest that only straggling bits of sun- 

 fire ever fall to the ground. Beneath these spiry, 

 crowding trees one has only " the twilight of the 

 forest noon." This forest, when seen from near-by 

 mountain-tops, seems to be a great ragged, pur- 

 ple robe hanging in folds from the snow-fields, 

 while down through it the white streams rush. A 

 few crags pierce it, sun-filled grass-plots dot its 

 expanse at intervals, and here and there it is rent 

 with a vertical avalanche lane. 



Many a happy journey and delightful climb 

 I have had in the mountains all alone by moon- 



254 



