So I went toward him, and got very close before he
flew. I caught sight of his mate in the bushes, and, as I had supposed, she
was on a nest. Though wanting to see her eggs or young ones, I resisted the
temptation, for I was afraid if I went nearer she might abandon her nest,
as some mother birds do.
It did not seem to me that I was lost, yet lost I was. The peaks were not
in sight. The canyon widened down the slope, and I was pretty sure that it
opened out flat into the great pine forest of Penetier. The only thing that
bothered me was the loss of my mustang and outfit; I could not reconcile
myself to that. So I wandered about with a strange, full sense of freedom
such as I had never before known. What was to be the end of my adventure I
could not guess, and I wasted no time worrying over it.
The knowledge I had of forestry I tried to apply. I studied the north and
south slopes of the canyon, observing how the trees prospered on the sunny
side. Certain saplings of a species unknown to me had been gnawed fully ten
feet from the ground. This puzzled me. Squirrels could not have done it,
nor rabbits, nor birds. Presently I hit upon the solution. The bark and
boughs of this particular sapling were food for deer, and to gnaw so high
the deer must have stood upon six or seven feet of snow.
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