258 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



swayed from side to side, the tops swinging in a half 

 circle, and if the wind should be strong enough, they 

 will at times lash and snap like a whip. John Muir, 

 in "A Wind-storm in the Sierras," describes these 

 noble trees, one of which he climbed during a great 

 wind-storm, as follows : 



" Though comparatively young, they were about a 

 hundred feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were 

 rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accus- 

 tomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I ex- 

 perienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, 

 and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration 

 of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished 

 in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling back- 

 ward and forward, round and round, tracing indescrib- 

 able combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, 

 while I clung with muscles firmly braced, like a bobo- 

 link on a reed." 



Interspersed with the Douglas firs were some balsam 

 firs, a few very tall black spruces and some second- 

 growth pines. In prowling through this growth of tall 

 timber, on the forenoon of our arrival, when the sun 

 was shining, and when, for a part of one day at least, 

 nature was to be seen at her best, I discovered two of 

 these Douglas firs growing but a foot apart, one of 

 them measuring twenty-eight inches in diameter and 

 the other thirty-seven inches, and both of them 

 over one hundred feet tall. Directly back of this pair 



