BEFORE going home from my morning sessions with the little lover and
other feathered friends, I often took a gallop at the foot of the hills
to visit a gigantic old tree, the king of the valley. One such ride is
especially marked in my memory. It was on one of California's most
perfect mornings. When the sun had risen over the valley, the fog
dissolved before it, sinking away until only small white clouds were
left in the tender blue of the notches between the red hills; while the
bared vault overhead had that pure, deep, satisfying color peculiar to
fog-cleared skies; and the cool fresh air was full of exhilaration. It
put Mountain Billy so in tune with the morning that, when I chirrupped
to him, shaking the reins on his neck, he quickly broke into a lope and
his ringing hoofs beat time to my song as we sped down the valley, past
vineyards and orchards and yellow fields of ripening grain. The free
swift motion was a delight in itself, and after days and weeks given to
the details of nest-making, shut away from the world in our little
remote valley at the foot of the mountains, now, when we came to a
break in the hills and our nostrils were greeted by the cool salt breeze
coming from the Pacific, suddenly the whole horizon broadened; the
inclosing valley walls were overlooked; we were galloping under the high
arching heavens in a wind blowing from far over the wide ocean.

Here stood the great sycamore, with branches swaying; for the tree faced
this break in the hills. It seemed as if the old monarch, with roots
firmly planted, had battled for its ground; and now, as a conqueror,
stood with arms uplifted to meet the ocean gales. I had never before
appreciated the dignity of those straight upreared shafts, the vital
strength of those deep grappling roots, the mighty grandeur of this old
battle king.

When one of the trunks fell, I had to hunt the sycamore over to find
where it came from, not missing it in the massive framework that was
left. The giant measured twenty-three feet and a half in circumference,
three feet from the ground. Its enormous branches stretched out
horizontally so far that, between the body of the tree and the tips that
hung to the earth, there was a wide corridor where one could promenade
on horseback. In fact, the tree spanned, from the tip of one branch to
the tip of the other, one hundred and fifty-eight feet. In the
photograph, the figure of a person is almost lost in the complicated
network o