314 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



against which falling branches roll, are always 

 deeply scarred on the upper side, and as we have 

 seen are sometimes burned down. The saddest 

 thing of all was to see the hopeful seedlings, 

 many of them crinkled and bent with the pres- 

 sure of winter snow, yet bravely aspiring at the 

 top, helplessly perishing, and young trees, per- 

 fect spires of verdure and naturally immortal, 

 suddenly changed to dead masts. Yet the sun 

 looked cheerily down the openings in the forest 

 roof, turning the black smoke to a beautiful 

 brown, as if all was for the best. 



Beneath the smoke-clouds of the suffering 

 forest we again pushed southward, descending a 

 side-gorge of the East Fork canon and climbing 

 another into new forests and groves not a whit 

 less noble. Brownie, the meanwhile, had been 

 resting, while I was weary and sleepy with almost 

 ceaseless wanderings, giving only an hour or two 

 each night or day to sleep in my log home. 

 Way-making here seemed to become more and 

 more difficult, " impossible," in common phrase, 

 for four-legged travelers. Two or three miles 

 was all the day's work as far as distance was con- 

 cerned. Nevertheless, just before sundown we 

 found a charming camp ground with plenty of 

 grass, and a forest to study that had felt no fire 

 for many a year. The camp hollow was evi- 

 dently a favorite home of bears. On many of 

 the trees, at a height of six or eight feet, their 



