Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Yes," said Jack, "I remember that, too."

"I reckon it's like this," explained Hugh. "If the fire passes over the country quickly and just burns or kills the standing trees and doesn't heat the soil too much, then the seeds that have been dropped by the trees and are lying hidden in the soil, sprout and new timber grows up, but if the fire catches in the soil of the forest, which you know is made up of the needles and branches and cones of the pine trees, and if that soil is dry enough so that it will burn, then the fire keeps creeping through it, burning it where it's dry enough to burn, or heating it where it's too damp, and so all the seeds that are lying in it are either burned or cooked, and there is nothing left to sprout. Then after that, a few years of rain storms will wash away all the soil, and as there's nothing left on the mountain to furnish seeds, no timber ever grows. I take it, a great deal depends on the condition of the soil at the time the fire goes through. If it's dry, the seeds of the trees are likely to be killed. If it's damp, they're likely to live after the fire has passed and to send up another crop of trees."

"It seems an awful shame, Hugh, that all this timber should be destroyed and all game should be driven out. Of course, the timber has no commercial value now. I suppose it's too far from any market, and there's no way to get it out."

"No," said Hugh, "you couldn't sell it for anything, of course, but the time will come, I expect, when there'll be some use for all this timber. This country is going to fill up with people sometime, and those people will need houselogs, corral poles, and fence-posts; and then besides that, nobody knows what mines may not be found in these mountains; and if mines ever are found and worked, there is going to be a lot of lumber needed to timber them with."

When the camp was reached the western sky looked very threatening, and Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, let us get these loads off as quick as we can and picket the horses, and then we'll get the tent up. I reckon we are going to be rained on to-night, and we may as well sleep as dry as we can."

It took but a few minutes to throw the loads off the horses, and to picket them, and immediately the little tent was raised and the beds and packs got under cover. By this time it was dark, and over the mountain-tops to the west could be seen lightning flashes, playing far above the red glow of the forest fire.

"Yes," said Hugh, as he looked toward the mountains, "I believe that rain will come pretty near putting that fire out to-night. At all events it will check it."

The storm advanced toward them, and presently the light of the fire grew dimmer as the rain passed over it and advanced toward the valley. Supper had hardly been cooked when the first few drops reached them, and after piling plenty of wood on the fire, they retreated to the tent to eat. It was a hard thunder storm, and before long flashes of lightning were thick all over the sky and the thunder was crashing and rattling above their heads.

"I don't believe we'll get drowned out here to-night," said Hugh, "for this place where we've camped is a few inches higher than anything round about it, but we may find our things pretty damp in the morning, for this hard rain sifts through even good canvas like this," and he pointed to the tent above them.

"There's one thing you want to look out for when you are camping in a dry country, son," he went on; "don't ever camp down in a ravine, no matter how dry it may seem to be. I've known three or four cases where a lot of fellows camped in a nice grassy spot in the middle of a ravine and along during the night there came a cloud-burst somewhere up on the high prairie, and the water came rolling down the ravine and floated all the fellows off. I guided a party of scientific chaps one time that did just that. The ravine was dry when they went to sleep, and they were washed away during the night, and the next morning the ravine was pretty nearly dry again, but they spent two or three days traveling down that gulch, picking up their things that had been carried away by the water and digging them out of the mud and sand. Some of the men might easily enough have got drowned if the storm had lasted a little longer."