Feb. 26, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
329 
blanket lie the tin cans of civilization. But 
though this blanket is wide and thick, it but half 
conceals the occasional no-trespass signs which 
mar the trees; hence we disregard those we 
pass, for who would warn away two harmless 
people who are merely making wide tracks in 
the snow? 
On another morning we tramped further away 
to the first high ridge of the nearby mountains. 
Through the woods we followed a road at that 
time buried under a drift seven feet in depth. 
The leeward edge of this drift was uneven and 
sheer, and presently the story of a rabbit’s wan¬ 
derings was there unfolded. Evidently bunny 
was in great haste. Following his habit of keep¬ 
ing in the middle of the woods road when hur¬ 
ried, he had traversed the deep drift for 200 
yards, mainly in a direct line, but curiously 
enough his trail showed that he was either 
frightened or that the snow had affected his 
vision, for his course took him across the curves 
in the leeward edge of the drift, and in half a 
have outgrown. Once I happened to turn sud¬ 
denly to see a companion, a six-footer, with 
head and arms buried in the snow, swearing 
softly to himself as he extricated his upper half 
and tried to regain his footing on the slippery 
hillside. Lustily he called for spare thongs, for 
one of his own had parted under the sudden 
strain. To see him trying to shake the snow 
out of his sleeves recalled the motions of a 
cat which has stepped in a puddle of water. 
Traversing the ridge of the mountain, we de¬ 
scended in a long slant to the trout stream at 
its base, passing through orchards where large 
numbers of snow buntings were busily hopping 
along the snow from weed to weed. These per¬ 
mitted us to approach within a few feet and to 
observe how thoroughly they stripped the weeds 
of their seed, wasting none. To these useful 
little birds the snow was a material aid, for it 
enabled them to reach their food without their 
customary labor. 
It is on these midwinter days when the snow 
after the leafing time in May, when one, in fol¬ 
lowing the trout brooks, is infected by them ere 
he notices their presence. For one I make a 
detour to windward of each one noticed, even in 
midwinter, as they are active agents of the evil 
one from whom I seldom escape. 
Where the birches stand thickest, there the 
shadows are strongest. There, too, is one of 
the places where the famous artists have found 
warrant for their use of blue tints—tones which, 
in a painting, are often criticised as foreign to 
nature. In such a place these tones were par¬ 
ticularly noticeable. An artist who was with 
me at the time said I was incorrect in thinking 
there was a purple effect, for in reality, he said, 
it was bluish; he expressed it differently but his 
exact terms were technical and I have forgotten 
them. 
After a recent fall of snow there was a crust 
in the woods just strong enough to permit us 
to walk on it without breaking through, while 
in the open after the sun became warm, under 
dozen places, as the marks showed, he had fallen 
down the miniature cliff. Scrambling back to 
the hard snow, down he tumbled again at the 
next curve. A man might do this in tramping 
through the snow at night, but unless this rabbit 
was blind in his left eye, it seems inexplicable 
that he should have been so clumsy. No pur¬ 
suer’s trail was in evidence, nor were there on 
the snow any wing marks to indicate that 
bunny's eyes were on an owl as he ran. Event¬ 
ually the tracks were lost in a scrub oak 
thicket. 
The heavy clothing began to be burdensome 
in the long ascent of the mountain, for the sun 
was shining brightly and the wind was light. 
On the way we noticed one thing particularly. 
As the sun warmed the evergreens little patches 
of hard snow fell from them, and striking the 
steep slope, rolled over and over, gaining in size 
and weight as their velocity decreased, coming 
to rest in thickets or where a stone wall lay in 
their course. Every slope was marked by these 
natural snowballs and their wayward furrows. 
Occasionally in climbing we crossed glare ice 
but thinly concealed by the fresh snow, and 
there we frequently tumbled and cut queer antics 
which the seasoned snowshoer is supposed to 
is deep and the sun bright that one is first re¬ 
minded of the coming of spring. Faces grow 
red and redder; but it is not until after the re¬ 
turn home that one understands the meaning of 
the thing, for sunburn seems an affliction of the 
good old summer time, and not of midwinter. 
Nevertheless the combination I have mentioned 
is effective, though its after effects are trivial 
by way of comparison with the scorching one 
suffers during his first warm day on the trout 
streams in May. 
There is a subtle attraction for the snowshoer 
in the frozen swamps and meadows where the 
wild huckleberry bushes and the white birch 
sprouts and pussy willows are thickest. These, 
he reasons, were beaver meadows in the olden 
times; their general formation indicates that, 
else how can their presence in the high country, 
where the streams are so rapid, be accounted 
for? An excellent time this is to follow the 
trout streams and become familiar with their 
peculiarities while the footing is good and be¬ 
fore their margins are lost in the overflow and 
the ooze of early spring. One. notices, too, the 
quantities of poison sumach everywhere in these 
thicket's. Now that their branches are exposed 
they can be avoided; a thing that is not so easy 
our weight the crust gave way occasionally, caus¬ 
ing many a stumble as the toes of our snow- 
shoes caught on the edge of the crust. Walk¬ 
ing rapidly, however, it was possible to cover 
the ground with ease, but in the woods, in fol¬ 
lowing a brook, there were innumerable little 
rills to cross. On the banks of each the crust 
was glassy, so that stepping across was diffi¬ 
cult. One all hands negotiated safely by walk¬ 
ing a narrow plank footbridge coated with ice, 
but others we jumped across, a maneuver one 
of the beginners executed in a manner that 
would have astonished him could he have seen 
it in a photograph. 
Another bridge presented difficulties. It span¬ 
ned a large brook which rushed underneath with 
considerable fuss. The planking had been re¬ 
moved and the old sleepers of round logs, tilted 
at an angle of 40 degrees, were ice coated. The 
leader crossed on a single one of the logs the 
next one tried two logs, one for each foot, but 
the big fellow inched across sprawled on hands 
and feet, shuffling each of his immense snow- 
shoes- along a few inches to make room for the 
other one. He threatened bodily harm to the 
camera man if the picture obtained there was 
exhibited. 
