ing the freshets caused by melting snows 

 and spring rains, trying to imagine how 

 it might look on such occasions, when 

 a million logs, the cut of the lumbermen 

 during the previous winter, were let loose 

 and came crowding, climbing, jamming, 

 tumbling over one another down through 

 the ravine and over the brink with the 

 mighty rushing waters. 



The ground about where I sat was 

 strewn with rocks, boulders and smaller 

 stones, all worn by the ceaseless action 

 of the waters, many of them smooth, 

 others seamed with strata of quartz, 

 granite or sandstone, some curiously 

 marked and grotesque in shape. 



As I sat thus, meditating, one of these 

 curiously marked stones, about the size 

 and shape of one of those steel trench 

 hats worn by the "doughboys" in the 

 late war, which had been lying close to 

 the edge of the water and partly in it, 

 suddenly jumped up and appeared to 



47 



