broken. Most of the night I spent chopping 

 wood, and I did not sleep at all. But I had a 

 good rest by the stove, where I read a little from 

 a musty pamphlet on palmistry that I found 

 between the logs of the cabin. I always carry 

 candles with me. When the wind is blowing, the 

 wood damp, and the fingers numb, they are of 

 inestimable value in kindling a fire. I do not 

 carry firearms, and during the night, when a lion 

 gave a blood-freezing screech, I wished he were 

 somewhere else. 



Daylight found me climbing toward the top 

 of the range through the Medicine Bow National 

 Forest, among some of the noblest evergreens in 

 Colorado. When the sun came over the range, 

 the silent forest vistas became magnificent with 

 bright lights and deep shadows. At timber-line 

 the bald rounded summit of the range, like a 

 gigantic white turtle, rose a thousand feet above 

 me. The slope was steep and very icy; a gusty 

 wind whirled me about. Climbing to the top 

 would be like going up a steep ice-covered house- 

 roof. It would be a dangerous and barely pos- 

 sible undertaking. But as I did not have courage 



23 



