s questions. All this in addition
to watching his charges, as a nurse watches her patients, feeling their
pulses, so to speak, and taking their physical and moral temperatures.
He must keep up their morale with entertaining yarns, he must restrain
their too ambitious experience, must protect them from their own
foolhardiness. He must have the charity to forbear deriding their
stupidity. He must be as courageous and resourceful as the old-time
guides, though his trials may not be so spectacular. A guide soon
plumbs a man's character and fathoms its weakness and its strength.

As a boy guide I trailed far into the wilds with hunting parties, and
camped through the summers with fishermen, geologists, explorers and
mountain climbers. The reaction of individuals to the open spaces has
ever been interesting to me. I have seen voluble women silent before
the awesome beauty. I have seen phlegmatic business men moved to
tears. There was no way of anticipating people's reactions.

Nearly all climbers dread the altitude of the high country. It is the
"Old Man of the Sea" to most "tenderfeet." It has as many forms as the
clouds and changes them as readily. It pounces upon the innocent but
not unsuspicious wayfarer in the form of nosebleed, short wind,
earache, balky watches, digestive troubles, sleeplessness and
oversleeping.

As guide one day for the wife of a well-known geologist, I secured a
new idea regarding altitude. We were to spend the day above
timberline, where we hoped to identify the distant mountain ranges,
observe the wild life close at hand and collect flower specimens. We
left the valley at dawn, let our horses pick their way slowly upward.
We halted occasionally to watch a scampering chipmunk or to explain our
harmless errand to a scolding squirrel.

Near the timberline we emerged into a little grassy glade beside a
rushing stream. Far above and deep below us grew a dense forest of
Engelmann spruce. In the glade stood a detached grove of perhaps a
dozen trees, dead and stripped almost bare of limbs and bark.

My lady stopped abruptly and stared at these. She shook her head
sadly, murmuring to herself. At last she spoke:

"Isn't it too bad?" she grieved.

I agreed sympathetically, then peered about to learn the cause of our
sudden sadness.

The lady pointed to the dead trees, wagged her head, and said:

"Isn't it too bad the altitude killed them?"

There were green trees a mile farther u