OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



CHAPTER I 



WHERE SPRING COMES LATE 



SPRING is slow in getting up to the North- 

 ward, beyond the 50's, in the inland plains 

 region, and though it is the first day of 

 March, it is not yet too late to don the old snow- 

 shoes, shoulder the kodak, and sally out to see 

 how the wild-folk are living. To a casual eye 

 the Manitoba landscape may look as typically 

 wintry as it did two months earlier. The fields 

 and meadows, white and lonely as a vast, frozen 

 sea, stretch off into the horizon; the copses ap- 

 pear as leaden as when December locked up their 

 shivering nakedness. But there is a difference: 

 the fields are now more dazzlingly bright in the 

 ascending sun; and in the woods little thawed 

 spots show up on the south side of stump or 

 fallen tree. Now also the snow is much packed, 

 not by thaws, but by its own weight, and snow- 

 shoeing is a delight. So it is good to swing out 

 of the little town, leave the iron-hard winter 



13 



