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After cautiously casting about,
I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that were
growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemed
likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively
young, they were about a hundred feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops
were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb
trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in
reaching the top of this one; and never before did I enjoy so noble an
exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in
the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round
and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal
curves, while I clung with muscles firm-braced, like a bobolink on a
reed.
In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to
thirty degrees; but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen
others of the same species still more severely tried--bent almost to the
ground indeed, in heavy snows--without breaking a fiber.


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