166 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph by A. J. Baker 



CAUGHT ON THE WIRE 



King Frost marshals his forces in Glacier National Park and casts his pall of snow over the 



scouts sent forward to dig in. 



The front-line trenches are thinly held 

 by those who make up in courage and 

 bulldog tenacity of purpose what they 

 may lack in numbers. 



Let us brave the dangers of the firing 

 line to get a look along these trenches. 



As one's eyes sweep the situation on 

 any narrow sector, the tragedy of the 

 struggle stands out in bold relief. Here a 

 small, knotty and gnarled tree occupies an 

 unprotected listening post ; there a small 

 squad holds a shell crater where it would 

 seem that no living thing could exist. 



NO SUCH THING AS RETREAT 



However furious the conflict, there is 

 no such thing as retreat. Every tree 

 soldier stands rooted to the terrain it has 

 taken, dying if need be, but never falling 

 back. The thousands of mangled and 

 maimed who fight on so long as a single 

 spark of life remains, show what courage 

 the tree troops possess. 



The barrage of the wind may pitilessly 



beat upon them, the machine-gun fire of 

 the sand blast may transform them into 

 animated totem poles, but not until the 

 hand of death itself is laid upon them 

 will the trees surrender. Everywhere 

 the whitened corpses of the unburied 

 dead are to be seen, and their bones, de- 

 nied the privilege of sepulture, will re- 

 main until the desiccating power of the 

 powder-dry atmosphere causes them to 

 crumble — mute witnesses of tragic brav- 

 ery. 



Watch the living as they fight, some 

 with their stormward sides as bare of 

 branches as a hewn log, and on their lee- 

 ward sides only enough limbs to convert 

 them into weather vanes ; others with 

 their very heads bowed to the ground. 

 Even the whitebark pine, representative 

 of that great host of sky-seeking trees 

 which rear their proud heads above the 

 remainder of the forest, on the principle 

 that they must aspire or die, creeps along 

 the ground, like moss, with never a hint 



