128 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



of a canon, the top of a towering cliff, and wind- 

 swept tree-tops I have watched rain, hurrying 

 clouds, and illuminating lightning. These spectac- 

 ular displays, with the rumbling roar aroused 

 and repeated by the mountains, were among the 

 most stirring contributions to my outings. Each 

 experience was an adventure, and never was a storm 

 in any way dull. 



Sometimes lightning is a high explosive. One 

 of the many surprises which it gave me hap- 

 pened near my camp in Arizona. The bolt struck 

 and wrecked the roots of the tree like a high ex- 

 plosive shell, but blowing the trunk and top unin- 

 jured into the air. Lightning another time struck 

 the side of a tree like a projectile and tore out a 

 chunk of wood, then completely wrecked a tree sev- 

 eral yards beyond. A lodgepole pine about sixty feet 

 high, and without a limb for forty feet, was struck 

 about twelve feet above the earth and cut off as 

 though by a shell. Neither the stump below nor the 

 trunk or top showed any trace of the bolt. Another 

 time lightning struck the top of a tree and ran down 

 the trunk into the earth where it apparently came in 

 contact with the roots of another tree standing 

 several yards off. Both trees were blown into the 

 air, together with the rocks in which their roots 

 were entangled. 



Twice I have known bolts to wreck entire clumps 

 of trees. One of these contained nine and the 

 other five trees. Another bolt near my camp in 



