CHAPTER XI 



THE DELVERS IN DARKNESS 



Tj^RESHLY fallen snow is like the white page 

 of a hotel register: every comer leaves his 

 record there. 



A clever woodsman, looking at the footprints 

 in country snow, can tell us every traveler's name. 

 There are delicate marks left by a bird's light 

 feet. There, perhaps, is the track of a fox, much 

 like that of a dog, but with sweeps of the brush 

 among the footprints. Little field mice, creeping 

 over the snow, leave lines like the rows of double 

 stitching in old fashioned bedspreads. 



Pairs of paw-prints show which way the squirrel 

 ran. Four foot-marks together making a fan- 

 shaped print, then a space, and then four more : 

 Br'er Rabbit leaped along here. And in wild 

 woods one may see tracks, like the marks of baby 

 hands, left by a raccoon. 



A crow flaps heavily overhead, and we hear a 

 woodpecker hammering away, digging out the 

 grubs that, as he knows, are living deep in the 

 wood of trunks and branches. How much life is 

 astir, above the snow, in the winter forest. 



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