SPRING AND SUMMER MEET 45 



dreds of out-door people who have never met the 

 author. Like the poet's cuckoo, he still remains 

 " a voice, a mystery." 



The Assiniboine valley here is a low, winding 

 depression some two hundred feet below the level 

 of the prairie. The confines of the valley are 

 much cut up by deep ravines, and all are well 

 clad with poplar thickets; and on the snug flat 

 below, the tortuous stream, twisting back and 

 forth in endless loops, is fringed with grand old 

 elms and flanked by strips of other timber. It 

 is a natural refuge of the migrants in time of 

 their journeying; and also of course the home of 

 the woods birds that summer here. When safely 

 entrenched in these sheltered thickets in the bot- 

 tom-lands, the storms of spring and autumn 

 which sweep the plains can reach them but little. 

 Sometimes during an April snow-storm, even 

 the gray goose and the mallard slip down into 

 the river and cuddle up close in the lee of the 

 mud banks; there they weather the severest 

 storms, while on the flat above, some wise head 

 is telling his neighbor that they are driven back 

 again to the southward. Here, thanks to a wise 

 and respected game law, the noble mule deer 

 yet may be found, and the great dam of the 



