220 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



their lustrous feathers ; but were I to move a 

 hand so that their keen eyes saw it, or to snap a 

 stick so that their keener ears heard it, their 

 wings would pound the water into foam, and in 

 one brief moment all their grace and beauty 

 would have vanished from my sight. 



When the first snow falls upon the frozen 

 November pastures, burying the dry grass and 

 brown ferns, and leaving only the ghost-flowers 

 of goldenrod, aster, and fireweed, fox-tracks are 

 many upon the telltale carpet of winter. They 

 begin upon the flanks of Chocorua, or away to 

 the west among the boulders on Great Hill and 

 Marston Hill, where the battle of the wolves 

 was fought long ago, and come southward or 

 eastward through birch wood and pasture, larch 

 grove and swamp, to the lakeside and meadow. 

 Many a mile every hungry son of Reynard 

 travels over that first snow, searching for mice 

 or a plump blue jay to pounce upon. If, as I 

 lean upon a great gray boulder in the middle of 

 the wide upland pasture, I see a slender, sharp- 

 eared fox trotting towards me, can I whistle to 

 him as to a dog, and tempt him to me by hold- 

 ing up to him the mouse I have just taken from 

 my trap ? With the speed of a thought he will 

 dash from me towards yonder beech wood ; at 

 its edge he will pause for one last look of hatred 

 and terror, and then silence and the snow will 



