The color was light blue all over with dark blue head and tufted crest.  By and bye they ceased to scold me, and I was left to listen to the wind, and to the tiny patter of dropping seeds and needles from the spruces.  What cool, sweet, fresh smell this woody, leafy, earthy, dry, grassy, odorous fragrance, dominated by scent of pine!  How lonesome and restful!  I felt a sense of deep peace and rest.  This golden-green forest, barred with sunlight, canopied by the blue sky, and melodious with its soughing moan of wind, absolutely filled me with content and happiness.  If a stag or a bear had trotted out into my sight, and had showed me no animosity, not improbably I would have forgotten my gun.  More and more as I lived in the open I grew reluctant to kill.

Presently a porcupine waddled along some rods away, and unaware of my presence it passed by and climbed a spruce.  I saw it climb high and finally lost sight of it.  In searching up and down this spruce I grew alive to what a splendid and beautiful tree it was.  Where so many trees grew it always seemed difficult to single out one and study it.  This silver spruce was five feet through at the base, rugged, gray-seamed, thick all the way to its lofty height.  Its branches were small, with a singular feature that they were uniform in shape, length, and droop.  Most all spruce branches drooped toward the ground.  That explained why they made such excellent shelters from rain.  After a hard storm I had seen the ground dry under a thick-foliaged spruce.  Many a time had I made a bed under one.  Elk and deer stand under a spruce during a rain, unless there is thunder and lightning.  In forests of high altitude, where lightning strikes many trees, I have never found or heard of elk and deer being killed.  This particular spruce was a natural tent in the forest.  The thick-spreading graceful silver plumes extended clear to the top, where they were bushiest, and rounded out, with all the largest branches there.  Each dark gray branch was fringed and festooned with pale green moss, like the cypresses of the South.

Suddenly I heard a sharp snapping of twigs and then stealthy, light steps.  An animal of some species was moving in the thicket nearby.  Naturally I sustained a thrill, and bethought me of the rifle.  Then I peered keenly into the red rose shadows of the thicket.  The sun was setting now, and though there appeared a clear golden light high in the forest, along the ground there were shadows.  I heard leaves falling, rustling.  Tall white aspens stood out of the thicket, and two of the large ones bore the old black scars of bear claws.  I was sure, however, that no bear hid in the thicket at this moment.  Presently whatever the animal was it pattered lightly away on the far side.  After that I watched the quiver of the aspen leaves.  Some were green, some yellow, some gold, but they all had the same wonderful tremor, the silent fluttering that gave them the most exquisite action in nature.  The sun set, the forest darkened, reminding me of supper time.  So I returned to camp.  As I entered the open canyon Romer-boy espied me—­manifestly he had been watching—­and he yelled:  “Here comes my Daddy now!...  Say, Dad, did you get any pegs?”