264 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



steaders who lived fifteen miles away walked to a 

 midway place and had a merry camp-fire lunch 

 among the pines. Alone she explored the forests 

 and canons. She climbed peaks, studied trees, 

 and watched birds, beavers, mountain sheep, and 

 other wild life. All alone, winter as well as sum- 

 mer, she made excursions, camping wherever night 

 overtook her. Sometimes, too, she tramped by 

 moonlight. 



Many an evening in a wind-sheltered nook in 

 the woods she cooked a scanty supper in the edge 

 of a friendly camp-fire. After supper, if there was 

 sufficient wood at hand for the night, she sat for 

 a time watching the fire and thinking such thoughts 

 as a lone, outdoor woman thinks. Often she 

 wandered from the fire, better to have a look at the 

 starry landmarks in the wide and trail-less sky. 

 After a few hours of perfect sleep in a sleeping bag 

 she rose early and eagerly watched for the fires 

 of sunrise from some commanding crag. 



Her homestead consists of one hundred and 

 twenty acres of mountain scenery, much of which 

 is on edge. The land is covered with scattered 

 growths of western yellow pine, Douglass spruce, 

 and quaking aspen — the fairy aspen of which she 

 has written so charmingly. A granite cliflf towers 

 several hundred feet above the house. From her 

 front door you look westward up Fall River can- 

 on, and beyond where the snowy peaks of the 

 Continental Divide go far up into the sky. In 



