ADVENTURES WITH AN AX 297 



jingle of sleigh-bells down on the road a quarter of 

 a mile away. Naturally at that sound I have to 

 straighten my back and look to see if I can dis- 

 tinguish who is passing. 



This is generally fatal, for when I look down to 

 the road I cannot help looking farther, across the 

 plain to the distant hills, noting the beautiful rusty 

 color of the tamaracks by the swamp, the rich choc- 

 olate of the shrubby cinquefoil thickets, the smoke- 

 blue of the horizon hills. Winter, far from being a 

 colorless season, is, in point of fact, infinitely richer 

 in color masses than spring or summer, and far 

 more beautifully variable from hour to hour. These 

 smoke-blue eastern hills I am now gazing at in the 

 morning light will change their tone a dozen times 

 before they put on their translucent robes of ame- 

 thyst at sunset, warning me to take my homeward 

 way. 



I am not alone upon the mountain. A cotton- 

 tail lives just up the slope from where I am cutting, 

 and sometimes I see him, always his tracks. The 

 chickadees are quaintly curious about my occupa- 

 tion. The three crows which have stuck by us all 

 winter go back and forth overhead. By three- 

 thirty or four the big owls will begin to hoot. But 

 my particular intimate on this job is a weasel. He 

 lives, I think, in the tumbled-down stone wall which 

 runs up through the birches and beside which I 

 build my noonday fire. At any rate, I never see 

 him except in or on this wall. He is entirely fear- 

 less, even when the dog is with me, and as full of 

 alert curiosity as a fox or a terrier. Snow-white 

 except for the jet-black tip to his tail and his two 



