THE LAURENTIDES PARK 



ters in the background look still more 

 ragged and unkempt. Blue, deepening 

 to purple, covers the distant and yet 

 more distant ranges. 



Yet a very little while and the scene 

 will change. On the long slopes where 

 the moose browse, the dwarfed red 

 birches will stand a-shiver, their gar- 

 ments at their feet ; with the coming of 

 the snow all colour but the darkening 

 green of spruce and balsam departs 

 out of the land. Then the silence will 

 fall, not the mere lessened noise which 

 we are accustomed to call silence, but an 

 utter and all-enveloping soundless- 

 ness, without rustle of leaf, twitter of 

 bird, or murmur of water, that fairly 

 appals the soul. He who has stood soli- 

 tary, and strained his ear in vain for 

 some faint vibration of the air, will not 

 think it strange that panic fear may 

 descend on one who finds himself alone 

 in this great stillness. So it happened 

 to Johnny Morin in the old days when 



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