ingless without the puckered lip, the 

 interhiss, the brutal semi-snarl re- 

 strained by human mastery, the snap 

 and jerk of wrist and gleam of steel- 

 gray eye, that really told the tale, of 

 which the spoken word was mere head- 

 line. Another, a subtler theme was 

 theirs that night; not in the line but 

 in the interline it ran; and listening to 

 the hunter r s ruder tale, I heard as one 

 may hear the night bird singing in the 

 storm; amid the glitter of the mica I 

 caught the glint of gold, for theirs was 

 a parable of hill-born power that fades 

 when it finds the plains. They told 

 of the giant redwood's growth from a 

 tiny seed; of the avalanche that, born 

 a snowflake, heaves and grows on the 

 peaks, to shrink and die on the level 

 lands below. They told of the river 

 at our feet: of its rise, a thread-like 

 rill, afar on Tallac's side, and its 



