Mooswa 



And Others of the Boundaries 



CHOOSING THE KING 



THE short, hot Summer, with its long-drawn- 

 out days full of coaxing sunshine, had 

 ripened Nature s harvest of purple-belled pea- 

 vine, and yellow-blossomed gaillardia, and tall 

 straight-growing moose weed ; had turned the 

 heart-shaped leaves of the poplars into new sov 

 ereigns that fell with softened clink from the 

 branches to earth, waiting for its brilliant mantle 

 a fairy mantle all splashed blood-red by 

 crimson maple woven in a woof of tawny bunch- 

 grass and lace-fronded fern. 



Oh, but it was beautiful ! that land of the 

 Boundaries, where Black Fox was King ; and 

 which stretched from the Saskatchewan to where 

 the Peace first bounded in splashing leaps from 

 the boulder-lined foothills of the Rockies ; all 

 beautiful, spruce-forested, and muskeg-dotted 

 the soft muskegs knee deep under a moss carpet 

 of silver and green. 



