STEEP TRAILS 



eyes at the mountains rising along their edges, 

 perhaps twenty miles away, but no invitation 

 that is at all likely to be understood is discern- 

 ible. Every mountain, however high it swells 

 into the sky, seems utterly barren. Approach- 

 ing nearer, a low brushy growth is seen, 

 strangely black in aspect, as though it had been 

 burned. This is a nut pine forest, the boimtiful 

 orchard of the red man. When you ascend into 

 its midst you find the ground beneath the trees, 

 and in the openings also, nearly naked, and 

 mostly rough on the surface — a succession of 

 crumbUng ledges of lava, limestones, slate, and 

 quartzite, coarsely strewn with soil weathered 

 from them. Here and there occiu's a bunch of 

 sage or linbsjrris, or a purple aster, or a tuft 

 of dry bunch-grass. 



The harshest mountain-sides, hot and water- 

 less, seem best adapted to the nut pine's de- 

 velopment. No slope is too steep, none too 

 dry; every situation seems to be gratefully 

 chosen, if only it be sufficiently rocky and firm 

 to afford secure anchorage for the tough, grasp- 

 ing roots. It is a sturdy, thickset little tree, 

 usually about fifteen feet high when full grown, 

 and about as broad as high, holding its knotty 

 branches well out in every direction in stiff 

 zigzags, but turning them gracefully upward 

 at the ends in rounded bosses. Though making 



168 



