Chapter 11

One of the best moonlit times that I have had in this region was during my last visit to it. One October night I camped in a grass-plot in the depths of a spruce forest. The white moon rose grandly from behind the minareted mountain, hesitated for a moment among the tree-spires, then tranquilly floated up into space. It was a still night. There was silence in the treetops. The river near by faintly murmured in repose. Everything was at rest. The grass-plot was full of romantic light, and on its eastern margin was an etching of spiry spruce. A dead and broken tree on the edge of the grass-plot looked like a weird prowler just out of the woods, and seemed half-inclined to come out into the light and speak to me. All was still. The moonlit mist clung fantastically to the mossy festoons of the fir trees. I was miles from the nearest human soul, and as I stood in the enchanting scene, amid the beautiful mellow light, I seemed to have been wafted back into the legend-weaving age. The silence was softly invaded by zephyrs whispering in the treetops, and a few moonlit clouds that showed shadow centre-boards came lazily drifting along the bases of the minarets, as though they were looking for some place in particular, although in no hurry to find it. Heavier cloud-flotillas followed, and these floated on the forest sea, touching the treetops with the gentleness of a lover's hand. I lay down by my camp-fire to let my fancy frolic, and fairest dreams came on.

It was while camping once on the slope of Mt. Coxcomb that I felt most strongly the spell of the camp-fire. I wish every one could have a night by a camp-fire,--by Mother Nature's old hearthstone. When one sits in the forest within the camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid the silent, sculptured trees, there go thrilling through one's blood all the trials and triumphs of our race. The blazing wood, the ragged and changing flame, the storms and calms, the mingling smoke and blaze, the shadow-figures that dance against the trees, the scenes and figures in the fire,--with these, though all are new and strange, yet you feel at home once more in the woods. A camp-fire in the forest is the most enchanting place on life's highway by which to have a lodging for the night.

Index

Alma, 119, 127.

_Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi_. _See_ Kinnikinick.

Aspen, 204-206, 208.

Bears, vapor from a bear, 20; a bear and her cubs, 79; prospectors besieged by, 217-229; feeding on choke-cherries, 237.

Beaver, 238, 242; usefulness of, 53; cutting trees, 54-56; young, 56-58; houses of, 57; granary of, 58; tools of, 58, 59; dam-building, 59, 60; growth of a dam, 61; the dam a highway, 61; influence of dams on stream-flow, 61-64; dams catching and holding soil, 64-67; value of, 67.

Birds, Rocky Mountain, abundance of, 151, 152, 237; various species of, 152-159; song of, 159; a pet quail, 160-167; of a mountain park, 241, 242.

Boulder, a lava, 247-249.

Cabin, a night in a deserted, 22, 23.

Camp-fires, 5, 6, 77; the spell of the camp-fire, 256, 257.

Camping outfit, 4.

Carpenter, Prof. L. G., 4, 83.

Chambers Lake, 93.

Chickadee, 155.

Chipmunk, 242.

Columbine, 208.

Cottonwood, broad-leaf, 200.

Cottonwood, narrow-leaf, 200.

Coyotes, 77, 242; Scotch and the, 133-138; usefulness of, 237.

Crested Butte, 7.

Crow, 156-158.

Deer, 9.

Dog, the story of a collie, 131-147; a St. Bernard and a pet quail, 160, 164-167.

Edwinia, 208.

Electrical phenomena, in winter, 26; before the Poudre flood, 83-95.

Fir, balsam (_Abies lasiocarpa_), 207, 208.

Fir, Douglas. _See_ Spruce, Douglas.

Fires, forest, 12, 14; and the lodge-pole pine, 186, 187, 191, 192; causes of, 209; effects of, 209, 210; Indian tradition of a "Big Fire," 249, 250.

Flowers, above timber-line, 211-213; of a mountain park, 241.

Forestry, an address on, 13, 14.

Gem Lake, 240.

Geneva Park, 217.

Geologist, a night with a, 247-252.

Girl, climbing Long's Peak with an eight-year-old, 99-111.

Glaciation, 234, 235, 243.

Glaciers, 243.

Grand Ditch Camp, 93.

Grand Lake, 14, 15, 22.

Ground-hog, 110, 237.

Grouse, 9.

Hague's Peak, 84.

Hoosier Pass, 119, 123.

Horses, return, 115-118; Midget, 119-128.

Hotel, ejected from a, 11.

Ice, fine arts of, 12.

Kinnikinick, a plant pioneer, 171-175; its nursery for trees, 175, 176; growth of, 176, 177; flowers and fruit of, 177; as a bed, 177, 178; a legend of, 178, 179; reclaiming work of, 180.

Lakes, 235, 239, 240.

Lead Mountain, 9.

Leadville, 125.

Lion, mountain, 6, 20, 23; an epicure, 9, 10; tracked by a, 10.

Long's Peak, 15, 84; a climb up, with a little girl, 99-111; summit of, 109, 110; Scotch and the young lady on, 138-141; a winter climb with Scotch, 142-147; birds on summit of, 158.

Loveland, 91.

Mammals, 237.

Medicine Bow National Forest, 23.

Medicine-men, 10, 11.

Mesa Verde, 31, 48, 49.

Moonlight, the mountains by, 254-256.

Mt. Coxcomb, 244; camping on the slope of, 246-254, 256.

Mt. Lincoln, 11, 123.

Mt. Richthofen, 93.

Mt. Silverheels, 120, 121.

Mt. Wetterhorn, 244.

Ouzel, water, 100-102, 152, 153, 158, 159.

Park, a Rocky Mountain, 238-244.

Pine, nursed by kinnikinick, 175, 176.

Pine, lodge-pole, its names, 183; description of, 183; its habit of growth, 183, 184; its aggressive character, 184; distribution of, 184, 185, 208; its method of dispersing its seeds, 185-187, 191; growth of, 187, 188, 193, 194; as a colonist and pioneer, 189; cones embedded in, 189, 190; sunlight necessary to, 190; fire in a forest of, 191, 192; enemies of, 193; uses of, 193; value of, 193-195.

Pine, Western yellow, a thousand-year-old, 31-50; habits of the, 200-204; character of the, 240.

_Pinus flexilis_, 188, 208.

Plants, of the summit-slopes, 235, 236.

Potentilla, 208.

Poudre Lakes, 86.

Poudre Valley, flood in, 83, 95.

Ptarmigan, 9, 107, 153, 158.

Quail, a pet, 161-167.

Rabbit, snowshoe, 9.

Rex, a St. Bernard dog, 160, 164-167.

Rock, easily eroded, 246.

Rock-formations, grotesque and beautiful, 245, 246.

Rocky Mountains, individuality of, 213; character of, 233, 234.

Schoolhouse, a mountain, 13.

Sheep, mountain, 9; a flock of, 78.

Silence, 254.

Snow, tracks in, 9.

Snow-cornice, breaking through a, 17.

Snow-fall, 7.

Snow-slides, 19, 20; an adventure with a snow-slide, 24, 25.

Snowstorm, a, 8.

Solitaire, 153-155.

Specimen Mountain, electrical phenomena on, 88-92.

Spruce, Colorado blue or silver, 207, 208.

Spruce, Douglas, or Douglas fir, 188, 189, 203, 204; a large stump, 249.

Spruce, Engelmann, 188, 189, 208, 241, 249; the story of a forest of, 250-252.

Squirrel, Douglas, 242; as a nurseryman, 34, 35; and the old pine, 35, 47; character of, 79; cutting off and storing cones, 102-104.

Thrush, Audubon's hermit, 152, 154.

Timber-line, 104-107, 208, 209.

Trap Creek, 94, 95.

Trees, of the Rocky Mountains, 199-211, 236. _See also individual species_.

Turret-Top, 245.

Uncompahgre National Forest, 244.

Uncompahgre Peak, 244.

Uncompahgre region, wonders of the, 244-256.

Wind, 253.

Wolves, an adventure with, 71-75.

Woodpecker, Texas, 39, 40.

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Transcriber's Note

Variant and inconsistent spellings in the original text have been retained in this ebook (for instance: kodak, cosy, halfway and half-way; kinnikinick and Kinnikinick).

Some illustrations have been moved from their original locations to paragraph breaks, so as to be nearer to their corresponding text, or for ease of document navigation.

Duplicate chapter titles have been removed in the text version and hidden in the HTML version of this ebook.

The following typographical corrections have been made to this text:

Page xi: Changed 64 to 63, to account for illustration repositioning

Page 27: Changed spendid to splendid (calm and splendid forest)

Page 202: Changed eight to eighty (eighty-five feet high)

End of Project Gutenberg's Wild Life on the Rockies, by Enos A. Mills