JL. FOLLOWING 
'^THE DEER 
46 
SummerUoods 
canoe, and moved back into the 
woods. 
It was better here. The days were 
still and long, and the nights full of 
peace. The air was good, for nothing 
but the wild creatures breathed it, 
and the firs had touched it with their 
fragrance. The far-away surge of the 
sea came up faintly till the spruces 
answered it, and both sounds went 
gossiping over the hills together. On 
all sides were the woods which, on 
the north especially, stretched away 
over a broken country beyond my 
farthest explorations. 
Over against my tenting place on 
the lake a colony of herons had their 
nests in some dark hemlocks. They 
