“Tell me how, then?” demanded Roger, who failed to agree with him until he could be shown the facts.
“The rain must have washed all our tracks out, so not even the sharpest-eyed Indian brave could follow our trail,” explained the other, and of course Roger found himself in full accord with the theory advanced, for, like the story of Columbus and the envious Spanish courtiers, things looked very different after the explanation.
With a last backward look toward the friendly old tree that had afforded them shelter in the storm, the two lads tightened their belts and set off on their long tramp, expecting to strike the bank of the Missouri by the time the sun was ready to set.
CHAPTER XIX
UNDER THE FALLEN FOREST MONARCH
“There! that makes the fourth tree I’ve seen blown down in the storm,” remarked Roger, after they had been walking through the forest for some time.
“Yes, and in every case if you went to the trouble to examine those trees,” he was told by Dick, “you would find that they were rotten at the heart. They may keep on standing up with the rest, and seem to be perfect, but when the wind sweeps through the forest it searches out the weak and imperfect trees, and topples them over.”
“That must be what grandfather means when he talks about the ‘survival of the fittest,’” Roger mused. “He says that Nature knows what is best for everything, and keeps thinning out the weak ones along every line.”