“Why, Pedro! You have been fighting. Come here,” she called.
The hound did not look guilty. He limped to her and held up his right fore paw. The action was unmistakable. Helen examined the injured member and presently found a piece of what looked like mussel-shell embedded deeply between the toes. The wound was swollen, bloody, and evidently very painful. Pedro whined. Helen had to exert all the strength of her fingers to pull it out. Then Pedro howled. But immediately he showed his gratitude by licking her hand. Helen bathed his paw and bound it up.
When Dale returned she related the incident and, showing the piece of shell, she asked: “Where did that come from? Are there shells in the mountains?”
“Once this country was under the sea,” replied Dale. “I've found things that 'd make you wonder.”
“Under the sea!” ejaculated Helen. It was one thing to have read of such a strange fact, but a vastly different one to realize it here among these lofty peaks. Dale was always showing her something or telling her something that astounded her.
“Look here,” he said one day. “What do you make of that little bunch of aspens?”
They were on the farther side of the park and were resting under a pine-tree. The forest here encroached upon the park with its straggling lines of spruce and groves of aspen. The little clump of aspens did not differ from hundreds Helen had seen.
“I don't make anything particularly of it,” replied Helen, dubiously. “Just a tiny grove of aspens--some very small, some larger, but none very big. But it's pretty with its green and yellow leaves fluttering and quivering.”
“Fight? No, it certainly does not,” replied Helen.
“Well, it's as good an example of fight, of strife, of selfishness, as you will find in the forest,” he said. “Now come over, you an' Bo, an' let me show you what I mean.”
“Come on, Nell,” cried Bo, with enthusiasm. “He'll open our eyes some more.”
Nothing loath, Helen went with them to the little clump of aspens.
“About a hundred altogether,” said Dale. “They're pretty well shaded by the spruces, but they get the sunlight from east an' south. These little trees all came from the same seedlings. They're all the same age. Four of them stand, say, ten feet or more high an' they're as large around as my wrist. Here's one that's largest. See how full-foliaged he is--how he stands over most of the others, but not so much over these four next to him. They all stand close together, very close, you see. Most of them are no larger than my thumb. Look how few branches they have, an' none low down. Look at how few leaves. Do you see how all the branches stand out toward the east an' south--how the leaves, of course, face the same way? See how one branch of one tree bends aside one from another tree. That's a fight for the sunlight. Here are one--two--three dead trees. Look, I can snap them off. An' now look down under them. Here are little trees five feet high--four feet high--down to these only a foot high. Look how pale, delicate, fragile, unhealthy! They get so little sunshine. They were born with the other trees, but did not get an equal start. Position gives the advantage, perhaps.”