Bob glanced at
them critically. They were perhaps eighty to a hundred feet high and
from a foot to thirty inches in diameter.
"Fair timber," he commented to his companion.
Welton snorted. "Timber!" he cried. "That isn't timber; it's weeds.
There's no _timber_ on this slope of the mountain."
Slowly the ponies toiled up the steep grade, pausing often for breath.
Among the pines grew many oaks, buckthorns, tall manzanitas and the
like. As the valley dropped beneath, they came upon an occasional
budding dogwood. Over the slopes of some of the hills spread a mantle of
velvety vivid green, fair as the grass of a lawn, but indescribably soft
and mobile. It lent those declivities on which it grew a spacious,
well-kept, park appearance, on which Bob exclaimed with delight.
But Welton would have none of it.
"Bear clover," said he, "full of pitch as an old jack-pine. Burns like
coal oil, and you can't hardly cut it with a hoe. Worst stuff to carry
fire and to fight fire in you ever saw. Pick a piece and smell it."
Bob broke off one of the tough, woody stems. A pungent odour exactly
like that of extract of hamamelis met his nostrils.
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