of 



another lodge-pole growth, and three years 

 later these pines were growing thereon as thick 

 as wheat in a field. In a boggy area within the 

 burn an acre or two of aspen sprang up; this 

 area, however, was much smaller than the one 

 that the fire removed from the bog. Aspens 

 commonly hold territory and extend their hold- 

 ings by sprouting from roots; but over the 

 greater portion of the bog the fire had either 

 baked or burned the roots, and this small aspen 

 area marked the wetter part of the bog, that in 

 which the roots had survived. 



After destroying the lodge-pole growth the 

 fire passed on, and the following day it burned 

 away as a quiet surface fire through a forest of 

 scattered trees. It crept slowly forward, with 

 a yellow blaze only a few inches high. Here and 

 there this reddened over a pile of cone-scales 

 that had been left by a squirrel, or blazed up in 

 a pile of broken limbs or a fallen tree- top; it con- 

 sumed the litter mulch and fertility of the for- 

 est floor, but seriously burned only a few trees. 



Advancing along the blaze, I came upon a 

 veteran yellow pine that had received a large 



160 



