170 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
It seems as if a new element were suddenly 
opened for travel, and all due facilities provided. 
One expects to go a little farther, and see in 
the shop windows, “Wings for sale, — gentle- 
men’s and ladies’ sizes.” The snowshoe and 
the birch canoe, — what other dying race ever 
left behind it two memorials so perfect and so 
graceful ? 
The shadows thrown by the trees upon the 
snow are blue and soft, sharply defined, and so 
contrasted with the gleaming white as to appear 
narrower than the boughs which cast them. 
There is something subtle and fantastic about 
these shadows. Here is a leafless larch sapling, 
eight feet high. The image of the lower boughs 
is traced upon the snow, distinct and firm as 
cordage, while the higher ones grow dimmer 
by fine gradations, until the slender topmost 
twig is blurred, and almost effaced. But the 
denser upper spire of the young spruce by its 
side throws almost as distinct a shadow as its 
base, and the whole figure looks of a more solid 
texture, as if you could feel it with your hand. 
More beautiful than either is the fine image of 
this baby hemlock: each delicate leaf droops 
above as delicate a copy, and here and there the 
shadow and the substance kiss and frolic with 
each other in the downy snow. 
The larger larches havea different plaything: 
