CHAPTER III 



WHERE SPRING AND SUMMER MEET 



IT should have been summer, but it looked 

 and felt like spring. Though it was May 

 25th, the season was one of the latest and 

 coldest on record in western Canada, and as yet 

 the green-tinted knolls were the only promise of 

 better things. The woods and thickets had little 

 more advanced to show the rambler than cat- 

 kins and sleek, warm-coated buds or pollen- 

 tassels, and the landscape was almost as dull and 

 forbidding as in November. 



As is usual during such seasons, the birds were 

 a little late. Cool, stiff breezes from the north- 

 ward are not conducive to pleasant journeying 

 and early arrivals in the North; and in conse- 

 quence of such weather, many of the migrants 

 arrived somewhat behind schedule time. But 

 they were only a little late; and it must be ad- 

 mitted that they did exceedingly well in the face 

 of adversity. Indeed, many of them, as though 



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