the snow cannot put out a mile deep of fire.

In the old depressions where the ice had chiselled away the softer
rocks, there were formed lakes of the standing water, and one of these
was more than thirty miles long, winding in and out among the
mountain-ridges. In the lake bottom the water soaked through down to
the hot lava below, from which it was thrown boiling back to the
surface again, fountains of scalding water in the icy lake.

The cold Ice age has killed all the plants in the region; and it had
driven off the animals that could be driven, and had then buried the
rest. But when the snow was gone the creatures all came back again.
Grass and meadow-flowers of a hundred kinds came up from the valleys
below. The willow and the aspen took their place again by the
brook-side, and the red fir and the mountain pine covered the hills
with their sombre green. The birds came back. The wild goose swam and
screamed, and the winter wren caroled his bright song--loudest when
there seemed least cause for rejoicing. The beaver cut his timber and
patiently worked at his dams. The thriftless porcupine destroyed a
tree for every morning meal. The gray jay, the "camp robber," followed
the Indians about in hope that some forgotten piece of meat or of
boiled root might fall to his share; while the buffalo, the bear, and
the elk each carried on his affairs in his own way, as did a host of
lesser animals, all of whom rejoiced when this snow-bound region was
at last opened for settlement. Time went on. The water and the fire
were every day in mortal struggle, and always when the water was
thrown back repulsed, it renewed the contest as vigorously as before.
The fire retreated, leaving great stretches of land to its enemy, that
it might concentrate its strength where its strength was greatest. And
the water steadily gained, for the great ocean ever lay behind it. So
for century after century they wrestled with each other, the water,
the fire, the snow, the animals and the plants. But the fishes who had
once lived in the mountain torrents were no longer there. They had
been boiled and frozen, and in one way or another destroyed or driven
away. Now they could not get back. Every stream had its canon, and in
each canon was a waterfall so high that no trout could leap up.
Although they used to try it every day, not one ever succeeded.

[Illustration: "AND IN EACH CANON WAS A WATERFALL."]

So it went on. A great many things happened in ot