THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 109 



I, only a few days before, looking away at these 

 same hills, when the little fellow, half question- 

 ingly, half pensively asked, " Father, how can 

 the Blue Hills be so beautiful and have rattle- 

 snakes?" 



I gathered up the kit, gun and cannon-cracker, 

 and started back toward home, turning the ques- 

 tion of hills and snakes and skunks over and over 

 as I went along. Over and over the question still 

 turns : How can the Blue Hills be so beautiful ? 

 The case of my small wood-lot is easier : beauti- 

 ful it must ever be, but its native spirit, the un- 

 tamed spirit of the original wilderness, the free 

 wild spirit of the primeval forest, shall flee it, and 

 vanish forever, with this last den of the skunks. 



