8 SILVER FIELDS 



many another traveler's accounts of himself writ 

 on a more enduring page than this, for if you will 

 believe this fellow's tracks made before the thaw, 

 he was as big as a wolf, and formidable enough to 

 raise a hue and cry in the township against him. 

 The hare might be frightened to see the print of 

 his own pads, now grown as big as the tracks of his 

 enemy, the lynx. A skunk was warmed up into 

 such activity as his short legs could compass and 

 made his mark in the soft snow, unmistakable, 

 though almost big enough for the track of the 

 mephitic monster of the Wabanakee legend; the 

 rows of four footmarks printed diagonally athwart 

 his course when he cantered abroad from his bur- 

 row are none but his, whereto is added proof of 

 his sometime presence in a spicy waft of the air. 

 The regular parallel dots of the weasel's track 

 make a great show where he came to the surface 

 above his regular runway along the buried fence. 

 He and the fox, though unseen, are as wide awake 

 this cold night as ever, but they and all later 

 travelers are modest now, and set down naught 

 of their journeys. 



Can it be that there were giants here so lately 

 as a month ago when the woodchopper went this 

 way to his work! Here are his monstrous foot- 

 prints, albeit the stride is short, and there he set 

 his huge axe, before which the trees should have 

 gone down like mullein stalks, and there he set 



