22 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
bling down its narrow bed, came from the high 
eastern ledges and met that which poured from 
the heights on the west. Here, in the perpetual 
music of falling drops, where one or another of 
the great walls of the gorge always casts a deep 
shadow upon the ferns, is the heart of the moun¬ 
tain, the birthplace of the twilight. 
Early in the afternoon I followed the western 
stream to its source, where, in a dark hollow at 
the head of the west ridge, hidden wholly from 
view by the forest, lies a small mountain lake. 
Perhaps it would be more truthful to call it a 
large pool, fed as it is mainly by melting snow 
or the streams of rain-water poured into it from 
the crags of Chocorua. Beneath its shallow 
water the maroon and dark green sphagnum 
formed a submerged carpet of intense colors. 
The growing tops of the moss, star-shaped and 
erect, glowed with the tint of life. The borders 
of the pool were fringed with dense growths 
of yellow - green Osmund a r eg alls which were 
swayed by a sweet wind. Through the soft foli¬ 
age of the deciduous trees surrounding the pool, 
lance-shaped spruces and balsams pierced a way 
for themselves towards the sky. No fish were 
visible in the pool, and its only living tenants 
seemed to be some tadpoles about the size of 
squash-seeds. Now that the noises of the brook 
no longer overwhelmed every other sound, the 
