frequently saw the Indians passing in their birch- 

 bark canoes. Later the fur-traders passed by in 

 their journeys between Fort William and Fort 

 Garry. By that time I had grown to be a large 

 tree and my topmost bough waved over 130 feet 

 above the ground. In those days timber was not 

 needed so much as it is now. The Indians wanted 

 birch bark for their canoes, poles for their wigwams, 

 and dead branches to burn; and the fur-traders did 

 not require much more. They used logs for building 

 their trading-posts and wood for their fires, and 

 occasionally they built a wooden boat but they did 

 not need more, and they did not want the forest to 

 disappear, because in it lived the beaver, the marten, 

 the bear, the fox, and the other animals which 

 produced the furs in which these men traded. If 

 the forest disappeared they knew their trade would 

 disappear also. 



"After a good many years there came men with 

 queer spy-glasses and bright steel chains and measur- 

 ing tapes. They measured a straight line through the 

 forest and drove in stakes at every measuring point. 

 Then in a year or two came men with axes, and 

 picks, and shovels, and before we old trees had time 

 to turn this over in our minds the railway was built 

 and the trains were rushing past. 



"Then indeed came a new day for the forest. 

 The railway company needed trees for its station- 

 houses and its bridges, and many thousand trees 

 were used for sleepers or cross-ties the pieces of 

 wood to which the steel rails are spiked and soon 

 the axe strokes were ringing in the forest all day 

 long. When that work was completed we breathed 

 freely again for we thought all danger was past, but 



