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-: J S 1 
SNOWBIRDS, 6,500 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL 
eling, so George spent an hour “tuning 
the banjos.” 
When we broke camp, George decided 
to take the tent with us, as he knew 
the difficulties we might have on the 
summit without a covering and with 
nothing but smoky balsam for fire¬ 
wood. We cut the tent off by the snow¬ 
line, making it smaller than ever. 
George carried it while I took a few 
extra pounds in the form of the coal- 
oil can stove and three lengths of pipe. 
We climbed all afternoon in zig-zag- 
fashion and gradually left the cedars 
and firs behind us. We got among the 
balsams into good marten trapping 
country, and some success was now be¬ 
ginning to show in the traps. Great 
snow-balls, some of them hundreds of 
pounds in weight, kept falling from the 
tops of the balsams as we passed, and 
we were in constant danger of being 
stunned or smothered by them, but we 
were lucky in getting through with a 
few narrow escapes. 
“Marten like the snowy heights 
where men seldom travel,” said George. 
“It makes it a kind of tramp’s livin’; 
it gives about twenty times the trouble 
for what you get out of it, but you like 
it all the same. Some trappers think 
they can trap marten 
round their back 
doors. They get 
maybe two or three 
in a season that way, 
but if you want to do 
real trapping and get 
forty or fifty, believe 
me, you’ve got to go 
get them, and you 
can’t take any pack 
horses, kitchen 
ranges, nigger cooks 
and camp-outfits with 
you, either.” 
The entire day was 
one of just hard plug¬ 
ging in fitful snow¬ 
storms, upward, 
treadmill fashion, .all 
the way. That night 
we camped in the 
open to get away 
from the falling 
snow-balls. Our bed 
was of frozen balsam 
boughs on twelve feet 
of snow. Our little 
tent, in its reduced 
state, left hardly 
enough room to crawl 
under. We got the stove a-going, 
but the balsam made sorry fire and 
time and again we had to stick our 
heads outside in biting zero weather 
to gasp a breath of fresh air. The 
smoke got into our throats and our 
eyes until we were spluttering and 
weeping copiously. In the morning 
we cut what remained of our tent 
sheer in two, taking with us only a 
fly. 
The oil-can stove we discarded 
also, for without a complete tent 
we would have to have a big blaz¬ 
ing fire. 
As we plodded along we found 
squirrels, birds and rabbits in the 
traps. 
“I see there is always something 
to interfere with your capital, 
George.” 
“Sure! and it’s the same with 
everything,” he answered, philo¬ 
sophically. “If you grow wheat 
the weeds and the hail get 
it. If you handle groceries, the 
dust on the shelves play the 
deuce with them; grow fruit 
and the blight or coddling moth 
does the trick; cattle and the 
long winter or sour grass plays 
GEORGE THE 
TRAPPER IN HIS 
SHELTER TENT 
havoc. It’s just a game of ‘dog eat 
dog’.” 
Six thousand feet up and we seemed 
to be perched on an island above a sea 
of snow-clouds, for we could neither 
see across to the ranges on the other 
side of the valley nor yet could we 
see down into the valley. We seemed 
just to be perched up there precarious¬ 
ly on a snow-slide that dipped sheer 
away to nothing. 
We had to stop up for a breathing 
spell every twenty* yards, but for¬ 
tunately the air was rarified and ex¬ 
hilarating, with that intoxicating odor 
of the balsams that makes giants of 
ordinary folks. Sixty-five hundred feet 
up and we reached the summit of our 
trip. Just over the way we could see 
the timber line, where trees could no 
longer exist and only short grass or 
heather found sustenance. It was a 
fairyland we moved in, for there are 
no trees so beautiful as those giant 
balsams in their winter garb, every one 
reaching straight to the sky and shaped 
exactly like its neighbor, a great closed 
umbrella with the point upward, re¬ 
minding one of his baby days and of 
the wooden trees that used to be sup- 
(Continued on page 719) 
WINTER’S SNOWS 
TRANSFORM THE 
LANDSCAPE INTO 
FAIRY LAND 
Page 686 
