LETTER X. in 



LETTER X. 



The Dead Forest. 

 DEAR PAT, 



Practically this letter was written in the 

 dead-wood forest at the top of the downs, where 

 all the little rills which water the camps and run 

 down to swell the volume of the Similkameen 

 have their origin in a bleak, swampy moss. Fire 

 has, at some time, swept through the forest, and 

 left the dead trees standing grim and gray, flakes 

 of dark moss draping them in very funereal 

 fashion, so that one involuntarily feels chilled, 

 and wishes that Nature would be considerate and 

 bury her dead, replacing the gaunt trunks with 

 younger trees and greener. In this forest I lay, 

 note-book in hand, stretched along a smooth 

 fallen trunk about which the sunlight played, 

 writing my record of the week, while Toma tried 

 in vain to track a dying buck which we had seen 

 fall twice before he entered the timber. As I 

 lay there unmoving, two great ravens came from 



