IN THE OLD PATHS 143 



you are glad to find. The largest of the 

 trees have been felled, but nobody has dug 

 out the protruding boulders or blasted away 

 the outcropping ledges. One good word we 

 may say for death. It lasts well. It is no- 

 thing like a vapor. 



Not a rod of the way but talks to you of 

 something. Here, on the left, down in the 

 hollow by the swamp, you used to set snares. 

 Once fateful day ! you found a partridge 

 in the noose. Then what a fury possessed 

 you! If you had shot your first elephant 

 you could hardly have been more completely 

 beside yourself. It was a cruel sight ; you 

 felt it so ; but you had caught a partridge ! 

 With all your boyish unskillfulness you had 

 lured the unhappy bird to his death. A 

 spray of red barberries had been too bright 

 for his resistance. He discovered his mis- 

 take when the cord began to pull. " Oh, 

 why was I such a fool ! " he thought ; just 

 as you have thought more than once since 

 then, when you have run your own neck into 

 some snare of the fowler. 



Yonder, on the right, grew little scattered 

 patches of trailing arbutus. Every spring 



