unch bag, was
walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know whither he was
bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and
gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first
across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises,
green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then
came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable
tangle--oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack--and through it all an
abattis of old slashing--with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of
tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of
these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move
faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail.
The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses. The poles were
old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to
stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher
country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had passed, scattering her
fresh green. The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower
branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from
above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the
ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet. Through it
pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly.
Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude.
Bluebirds warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks. The sun
slanted through the forest.

Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these things
gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy
and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its
components. At one point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen
over a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river,
distant and below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the
tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off
hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel.
Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses.
Again, the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into view.
He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the
water lapped over its top. From this dis