WATER BORDERS 



They are always at it, but one so seldom 

 catches them in the act. Here in the val- 

 ley there is no cessation of waters even in 

 the season when the niggard frost gives 

 them scant leave to run. They make the 

 most of their midday hour, and tinkle all 

 night thinly under the ice. An ear laid to 

 the snow catches a muffled hint of their 

 eternal busyness fifteen or twenty feet 

 under the canon drifts, and long before 

 any appreciable spring thaw, the sagging 

 edges of the snow bridges mark out the 

 place of their running. One who ventures 

 to look for it finds the immediate source of 

 the spring freshets all the hill fronts fur- 

 rowed with the reek of melting drifts, all 

 the gravelly flats in a swirl of waters. But 

 later, in June or July, when the camping 

 season begins, there runs the stream away 

 full and singing, with no visible reinforce- 

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