134 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



doing all they could to spring our traps and scare the 

 game." 



The "fall" of 1892 was singularly prolonged and dry. 

 It seldom happens that September passes on the Upper 

 Rockies without one or two initiatory snowstorms, that 

 serve to wet the ground and damp the withering foliage. 

 But in the present autumn no such means of insurance 

 was forthcoming ; fires sprang up everywhere, and the 

 whole country was at the mercy of the winds. A camp 

 fire carelessly left smouldering would break out days 

 afterwards from the bed of pine-fibre on which it rested, 

 and which in itself was as a mass of tinder. The fallen 

 timber is everywhere as a plain of ready fuel, and the fire 

 marches before the breeze until " corralled " by accident 

 of water and change of wind. Almost invariably the wind 

 entirely drops at night, and the fires dwindle in the cold 

 and dewy stillness, only to break out again with the breeze 

 in the next forenoon, throwing forth great clouds of 

 smoke, and, as the day passes, gradually obscuring half 

 the landscape with dense vapour. Thus, this September, 

 one could, from a single height, count no less than eight 

 distinct forest fires in full blaze, and many miles of grand 

 timber were utterly destroyed. 



That the forest fires are to a certain extent of yearly 

 occurrence is illustrated by the fact that the railway 

 companies, buying their sleepers in stacks where cut, 

 always covenant not to take delivery " until after the first 

 snowstorm of the fall." And many a hard-working axe- 

 man has lost the whole of his summer wages by means of 

 this clause. 



It was pleasant riding though, this sunny morning, 

 and especially when the breeze rose, and the distant 

 smoke-clouds with it. We chose our way in advance 

 through a comparatively open country, the yellow aspens 

 quivering brightly upon tree-stems, dotted only so closely 

 that they interfered in no degree with easy progress. Deer 

 kept dancing across our path. Once a dainty, big-eyed 

 fawn, disturbed by Jim as he happened to be riding a 

 hundred yards on my right, came bounding up to me, 

 taking my horse possibly for its mammy. I kept up the 



