Wild Life on the Rockies — A Reader’s Guide

Snow, Peaks, and Government Duty

The catalog subject “Colorado — Description and travel” suggests a general scenic account, but the excerpts reveal a more specialized role. Mills identifies himself as a “Government Experiment Officer” and “State Snow Observer,” a position that required him to “scale many of the higher peaks of the Rockies” during three successive winters. This official capacity gives his descriptions of snow conditions, avalanche tracks, and icy slopes a technical edge. He notes that at thirteen thousand feet on Long’s Peak, “there was but little snow” on wind-swept steeps, forcing him to cut steps in ice. The book’s structure—opening with a chapter titled after his government job—anchors the nature writing in a specific, practical mission rather than pure reverie.

Dogs as Reliable Companions

Two chapters, “Faithful Scotch” and “Midget, the Return Horse,” shift focus to animal partners. The excerpt on Scotch, a black-and-tawny dog, is unusually detailed: his “long and silky” hair, “expressive and pleasing dog’s face,” and habit of chasing a football for an hour. More striking is the narrative of Scotch guarding Mills’s snowshoes for “eight cold hours” on Long’s Peak, or the story of a young lady who ignores Scotch’s directional cues and spends a night at thirteen thousand feet. These episodes treat the dog not as a pet but as a competent, if occasionally misunderstood, co-explorer. The catalog subject “Pioneers — Colorado — Biography” is thus broadened: Mills’s pioneering includes learning to trust animal judgment.

Beavers and Timberline Ecology

The chapter “The Beaver and his Works,” reprinted from The World To-Day, exemplifies Mills’s method of close observation. He describes beaver houses, dams, and winter behavior with an engineer’s eye. The catalog subject “Natural history — Colorado” is well served, but the excerpts show Mills avoiding sentimentalism. Instead, he presents the beaver as a landscape modifier whose “works” are visible and measurable. Similarly, “The Lodge-Pole Pine” and “Rocky Mountain Forests” likely extend this approach to tree ecology. The book’s illustrations—photographs of a beaver-house, a veteran pine, and timberline scenes—reinforce the documentary quality. Mills’s preface states he has “made scores of long exploring rambles” and “gone alone and without firearms,” positioning himself as a naturalist rather than a hunter.

Readers should approach Wild Life on the Rockies as a set of discrete essays, each rooted in a specific season, altitude, or creature. The catalog subjects hint at biography and travel, but the text itself is most rewarding when Mills lets a single phenomenon—a dog’s loyalty, a pine’s age, a beaver’s dam—unfold through patient detail. The book’s value lies not in grand narrative but in the accumulation of such moments, each grounded in the author’s physical presence on the mountain.

I think of Mills curled in his snowbound cabin, watching beavers work through the ice, and it makes me feel wonderfully alone in a good way. That same quiet patience fills the diary of a South Seas voyage, every island a small world held close. The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol" Among the South Sea Islands: A Diary — Reading Notes keeps that slow, observant company, like a footprint left in snow.