16 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



animals and the widely outspread sources of the 

 life-giving rivers. The other trees are mostly 

 spruce, mountain pine, cedar, juniper, larch, 

 and balsam fir ; some of them, especially on the 

 western slopes of the mountains, attaining grand 

 size and furnishing abundance of fine timber. 



Perhaps the least known of all this grand 

 group of reserves is the Bitter Eoot, of more 

 than four million acres. It is the wildest, shag- 

 giest block of forest wildness in the Rocky 

 Mountains, full of happy, healthy, storm-loving 

 trees, full of streams that dance and sing in 

 glorious array, and full of Nature's animals, — 

 elk, deer, wild sheep, bears, cats, and innumer- 

 able smaller people. 



In calm Indian summer, when the heavy winds 

 are hushed, the vast forests covering hill and 

 dale, rising and falling over the rough topo- 

 graphy and vanishing in the distance, seem 

 lifeless. No moving thing is seen as we climb 

 the peaks, and only the low, mellow murmur of 

 falling water is heard, which seems to thicken 

 the silence. Nevertheless, how many hearts with 

 warm red blood in them are beating under cover 

 of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are 

 shining ! A multitude of animal people, inti- 

 mately related to us, but of whose fives we know 

 almost nothing, are as busy about their own 

 affairs as we are about ours : beavers are build- 

 ing and mending dams and huts for winter, and 



