The summer was now at hand, and the forests were an unbroken mass of brilliant green.

In the little spaces of earth where the sunlight broke through, wild flowers, red, blue, pink and purple peeped up and nodded gayly, when the light winds blew.

Game abounded, but they killed only enough for their needs, Ross saying it was against the will of God to shoot a splendid elk or buffalo and leave him to rot, merely for the pleasure of the killing.
After a while they forded a large river, passed out of the forests, and came into a great open region, to which they gave the name of Barrens, not because it was sterile, but because it was bare of trees.

Henry, at first, thought it was the land of prairies, but Ross, after examining it minutely, said that if left to nature it would be forested.

It was his theory that the Indians in former years had burned off the young tree growth repeatedly in order to make great grazing grounds for the big game.