CHAPTER VII 



NATURALIST MEETS PROSPECTOR 



NO TREE-TOP adventures were in my 

 plans when, one autumn afternoon, I 

 started out for a three weeks' trip on the 

 summit slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Nor 

 was I planning to have discussions with pros- 

 pectors. Their ways were not mine, nor my ways 

 theirs; which fact, as will be seen, caused me trou- 

 ble. 



I thought to be in the wilds alone. I carried no 

 firearms; just a raincoat, a few pounds of raisins, 

 and a hatchet. Along the way I intended to visit 

 beaver colonies, trees at timberline, alpine lakes, 

 and glacier meadows, and hoped to extend my 

 acquaintance with that strange tree — the lodge- 

 pole pine. I had made many similar trips and was 

 ready as usual to delay and watch wild animals by 

 the hour, or to turn aside and investigate any sub- 

 ject of interest, whether new or old. 



For a while all went smoothly. A few miles 

 from my cabin I came to a number of beaver colo- 

 nies on the slope of Long's Peak. They were strung 

 bead-like in the shallow channel of a stream along 

 the top of a gigantic moraine that thrust forward 



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