TREES AT TIMBERLINE 77 



failures of the bad; the battles with wind and frost, 

 with fire and insect foes. Surely no picture ever 

 painted is more suggestive than the camp-fire. 

 With it the imagination brings the dead past back 

 to life, and its people in fitting scenes act again the 

 parts they once played. 



The Big Trees of California are the greatest liv- 

 ing wonders of the world. In the serene Sierras 

 they have achieved the dignity befitting the larg- 

 est and the oldest living things upon this earth. 

 Compared with these Big Trees the timberline 

 trees of the Rockies are pygmies and infants. Yet 

 who shall say that the life story of the timberline 

 tree is the less inspiring. To stand beneath. the 

 Big Trees is to feel the silent eloquence of the 

 "noblest of a noble race." To stand above the 

 dwarfed and battered front ranks of the intrepid 

 timberline forests, where the Storm King reigns and 

 the eagle soars, is to live with fired imagination 

 through all the long years of battle, and to feel 

 the triumphs of the unconquerable. Timberline 

 touches the heart with a sense of universal kinship. 



