WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 15 



and spoiled it. The Indians are dead now, and 

 so are most of the hardly less striking free trap- 

 pers of the early romantic Rocky Mountain 

 times. Arrows, bullets, scalping-knives, need no 

 longer be feared ; and all the wilderness is peace- 

 fully open. 



The Rocky Mountain reserves are the Teton, 

 Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark, Bitter Root, Priest 

 River and Flathead, comprehending more than 

 twelve million acres of mostly unclaimed, rough, 

 forest-covered mountains in which the great rivers 

 of the country take their rise. The commonest 

 tree in most of them is the brave, indomitable, and 

 altogether admirable Pinus contorta, widely distri- 

 buted in all kinds of climate and soil, growing 

 cheerily in frosty Alaska, breathing the damp 

 salt air of the sea as well as the dry biting blasts 

 of the Arctic interior, and making itself at home 

 on the most dangerous flame-swept slopes and 

 ridges of the Rocky Mountains in immeasurable 

 abundance and variety of forms. Thousands of 

 acres of this species are destroyed by running 

 fires nearly every summer, but a new growth 

 springs quickly from the ashes. It is generally 

 small, and yields few sawlogs of commercial 

 value, but is of incalculable importance to the 

 farmer and miner ; supplying fencing, mine 

 timbers, and firewood, holding the porous soil 

 on steep slopes, preventing landslips and ava- 

 lanches, and giving kindly, nourishing shelter to 



