The Spell of the Rockies

Although I have been alone by a camp-fire in every State and Territory in the Union, with the exception of Rhode Island, the matter in this book is drawn almost entirely from my...

I was impatient to have a close view of a beaver cutting down a tree, and at last one came prospecting near where I was hidden. After a prolonged period of repose and possibly r...

One autumn I watched a beaver colony and observed the customs of its primitive inhabitants as they gathered their harvest for winter. It was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most att...

At last I crawled and climbed up to the buzzing cups of the meter. So swiftly were they rotating they formed a blurred circle, like a fast-revolving life-preserver. The meter sh...

I had in mind to climb Sierra Blanca the following day, and hoped to spend the night in a ranch house on the northern slope of this great peak. Toward sundown Rob and I climbed...

Birds are one of the resources of the country. They are the protectors, the winged watchmen, of the products which man needs. Birds are hearty eaters, and the food which they de...

That night, as the fire neared the young tree growth, I scaled a rock ledge to watch it. Before me, and between the fire and the rocks, stood several veteran lodge-pole pines in...

Borers attack trees both old and young of many species, and a few of these species with wholesale deadly effect. Birches by the million annually fall a prey to these tree-tunnel...

In the midst of this performance, it occurred to him that if he wanted anything to eat he must hurry to me; so he interrupted his first action, and started to carry his second i...

On the falling-away of this buttress the tree-plumed terrace commenced to sag and settle. The soil-covered débris was well roped together and reinforced with tree-roots. When I...

In the Rocky Mountains the soil and morainal débris were transported only a few miles, while the Wisconsin and Iowa glaciers brought thousands of acres of rich surfacing, now on...

The forest-born stream is the useful and beautiful one. It has a steady flow of clear water, and fishermen cheerfully come to its green, mossy banks. The buildings along its cou...

Not daring to hurry in the darkness in order to get warm, I was becoming colder every moment. I still had a stiff climb between me and the summit, with timber-line three rough m...

Above the altitude of thirteen thousand feet are many fields of "eternal snow," and a dozen miles to the south of Long's Peak is the Arapahoe Glacier; while northward are the An...