AMONG THE MUSKRAT LODGES 



desperately home. Face this wind for a 

 day and you shall feel the venom working 

 long after you have sought shelter, nor 

 shall even the cheer of a big open fire 

 drive it easily from your bones. 



Yet you may draw from the chill this 

 cheer, if you will, that no longer is the 

 worst yet to come; it is here and soon 

 the prospect must mend. It seems odd 

 to think that some day next July we shall 

 sniiT this frigidity drawn from the depths 

 of the boreal current, borne on the wings 

 of the east wind, and revel in the intoxi- 

 cating ozone with which it soothes our 

 heat-fevered nostrils. 



Over on the bog edge are twenty- 

 seven lodges, built of bog turf and roots, 

 dead grass and rushes, almost any rub- 

 bish in fact which Mussascus, as Cap- 

 tain John Smith called him, has been able 

 to get in the neighborhood. Each has a 

 219 



