ON THE TRAIL OF THE GRIZZLY 259 



of sylvan monarchs were a balsam fir ^and a spruce. 

 The branches of the Douglas firs spread out as 

 they neared the ground, so that they formed a can- 

 opy, or giant umbrella, with a circumference of thirty 

 feet. 



The tips of the lower branches were incased in swing- 

 ing trailing moss, which acted like an immense circular 

 sponge in absorbing and holding the rain as it fell. 

 All around these trees was an accumulation of spills 

 and cones, maybe the accretion of a couple of centuries' 

 growth, and as dry as punk. I dug down into the 

 rather compact mass with my hands, and low down the 

 spills had become mostly disintegrated into dust, but 

 the cones were yet firm for a foot from the surface. 

 " Here," I said, " is a model shelter from all the rain 

 and all the storms with which rude winter may ever 

 afflict the land." 



In front of this haven of security ran a little brook 

 fed with icy water from the great snow-capped moun- 

 tain opposite. The busy beavers had built a pair of 

 their ingenious dams on the stream, both of them 

 below this spot. Some of the sock-eye salmon had 

 forced their way up over the first dam into the pool 

 above; six pairs of them being counted at their life- 

 work of spawning, while nineteen dead salmon showed 

 that their end had come in carrying out nature's be- 

 hest. Only one pair had surmounted the second dam, 

 and this pair gave me an opportunity of studying with 



