tucle of eleven thousand eight hundred feet. 

 How splendidly unconscious it was of its size 

 and its utterly wild surroundings! This brave 

 pine bore a dainty cone, yet a drinking-glass 

 would have completely housed both the tree 

 and its fruit. 



Many kinds of life are found at timber-line. 

 One April I put on snowshoes and went up to 

 watch the trees emerge from their months-old 

 covering of snow. While standing upon a 

 matted, snow-covered thicket, I saw a swelling 

 of the snow produced by something moving 

 beneath. "Plainly this is not a tree pulling 

 itself free!" I thought, and stood still in aston- 

 ishment. A moment later a bear burst up 

 through the snow within a few yards of me and 

 paused, blinking in the glare of light. No plan 

 for immediate action occurred to me; so I froze. 

 Presently the bear scented me and turned back 

 for a look. After winking a few times as though 

 half blinded, he galloped off easily across the 

 compacted snow. The black bear and the 

 grizzly occasionally hibernate beneath these 

 low, matted tree-growths. 



63 



