88 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



hills, but dunes like those at Ipswich beach, 

 shifting, treacherous, menacing. The sunlight 

 lay upon them as upon snow banks. 



Taking a sturdy Cape horse, unterrified by 

 sandy roads or cross-country jaunts, we set out 

 by a trail back of the cliffs for the picturesque 

 country between Highland Light and Province- 

 town. In a hollow behind the cliffs lay a life- 

 saving station with its chain of telephone poles 

 running from it both up and down the coast, and 

 its sentry box perched upon the crest of the 

 sandhill. From a dry field near it an Ipswich 

 sparrow rose, flew a couple of rods, dropped 

 beside a bunch of hudsonia, and then ran 

 swiftly away behind its cover. Presently its 

 whitish head appeared amid the grass at a dis- 

 tance and remained motionless but watchful. 

 Our trail ascended a slope and led into a forest 

 of pigmy pitch-pines. They were about six 

 feet high on an average, yet were said to be 

 twenty years old. A flock of forty or fifty gold- 

 finches sang and fed among them. Descending 

 into a broad, level meadow lying just inside the 

 cliffs, which, by this time, were becoming more 

 dunes than cliffs, we found that a fire started 

 intentionally among the coarse grass of the 

 meadow had spread to the low pines and bushes 

 011 the sides of the hills. As the wind was 

 east the smoke blew into and across the meadow, 



