§tox2 °f a ^omani^tax (pine 



this year the old pine was used as the back- 

 ground for a target during a shooting contest. 



While I was working over the old pine, a 

 Douglas squirrel who lived near by used every 

 day to stop in his busy harvesting of pine-cones 

 to look on and scold me. As I watched him 

 placing his cones in a hole in the ground under 

 the pine-needles, I often wondered if one of his 

 buried cones would remain there uneaten to 

 germinate and expand ever green into the air, 

 and become a noble giant to live as long and 

 as useful a life as Old Pine. I found myself 

 trying to picture the scenes in which this tree 

 would stand when the birds came singing back 

 from the Southland in the springtime of the year 

 3000. 



After I had finished my work of splitting, 

 studying, and deciphering the fragments of the 

 old pine, I went to the sawmill and arranged for 

 the men to come over that evening after I had 

 departed and burn every piece and vestige of the 

 venerable old tree. I told them I should begone 

 by dark. Then I went back and piled into a 

 pyramid every fragment of root and trunk and 



47 



