Sintamaskin 



always full of color, was now, against the 

 snow, of intense vividness of rose and violet. 

 Then the last slope downward, rough and 

 rocky, and here stood the trees which are, to 

 my mind, perhaps the greatest glory of Sinta- 

 maskin white birches. Not the slender sap- 

 lings of our local woods, but magnificent great 

 fellows, two feet in diameter, their wonderful 

 bark curling in scrolls where, in its exuber- 

 ance, it had peeled away ; silvery white in 

 summer or now against the blue sky; by 

 contrast with the snow, they were salmon and 

 golden, their color intensified by the lumps of 

 snow piled up on every projecting edge of 

 bark They grew even to the shore, where 

 they mingled with the cedars, whose feathery 

 branches overhang the clear green water in 

 summer-time, but whose lower limbs were now 

 buried beneath the sloping snow. 



We came out upon a long and narrow bay, 

 the southwestern corner of the lake. On the 

 left was a ridge covered with spruce and hard 

 wood ; on the right a high and precipitous 

 wall of cliff and tumbled masses of granite, 

 upon which rose ranks of the sombre-hued and 

 rigid spruce and fir, and high above all the 

 graceful forms and lighter green of the pines. 



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