THE STREETS OF THE MOUNTAINS 



spring one may have sight or track of deer 

 and bear and bighorn, cougar and bobcat, 

 about the thickets of buckthorn on open 

 slopes between the black pines. But when 

 the ice crust is firm above the twenty foot 

 drifts, they range far and forage where 

 they will. Often in midwinter will come, 

 now and then, a long fall of soft snow pil- 

 ing three or four feet above the ice crust, 

 and work a real hardship for the dwellers 

 of these streets. When such a storm por- 

 tends the weather-wise black-tail will go 

 down across the valley and up to the pas- 

 tures of Waban where no more snow falls 

 than suffices to nourish the sparsely grow- 

 ing pines. But the bighorn, the wild 

 sheep, able to bear the bitterest storms 

 with no signs of stress, cannot cope with 

 the loose shifty snow. Never such a 

 storm goes over the mountains that the 

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