174 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER . 
The lake was lower by a foot than I had ever 
before seen it in the autumn. In August it had 
washed the bushes on its dikes; now a yard or 
more of sand tempted a stroller to follow its fair 
rim past wood and meadow. Along my shore 
of the lake the natural dike is in places fully 
seven feet high. It has been made during the 
centuries by the “thrust” of the ice which re¬ 
sults from the expansion of the ice-field by day 
following its contraction by night. On a sandy 
shore the expanding ice pushes up a little ridge 
of silt, and works it higher and higher as the ice 
mass rises during the winter. If the edge of 
the ice meets an obstacle, it is apt to break at a 
foot or more from the shore, and the pieces, still 
carrying their load of gravel, are shoved up the 
bank to its top, until, as years roll by, the dike 
is made too high to receive further additions. 
The lake in summer is certain to be stirring 
with life. Insects upon and over the water, 
fish, frogs, birds, muskrats, and often large 
animals are in sight and moving both by day 
and by night. Now, as the waning sun grew 
pale behind the birches, no living creature 
moved. The yellow leaves drifted out upon the 
breeze, and kept on drifting across the ruffled 
water. Nothing cared where they drifted. 
They were dead, and just then all the world 
seemed full of falling, drifting leaves, with no 
