The sleighing was excellent. Not more than eight inches of snow had fallen during the week, and it was the first enduring fall of the season. It had been followed by a dash of rain and then a sudden freeze. After going a mile on the North Conway road, we turned to the left into a road leading westward towards the narrow pass between Chocorua and Moat. The immense crags of Moat frowned upon us. Then we plunged into a pine forest and felt the first chill of night. As we sped through the shadow, we passed the skinned carcass of an ox hung by its fore-legs to the limb of a pine. A strange slaughtering-place, and one to tempt sniffing foxes when night falls. A mile farther on, the skull of a bear grinned on the tip of a pole in the brush fence by the roadside.

Music sounded in our ears, and far below the narrow road, which was grooved in the mountain-side, we saw Swift River plunging from ledge to pool on its way to the Saco. The Saco had seemed wild when we saw it in Conway intervale, but this stream’s madness left it placid by comparison. Two steep slopes, glare with crusted snow, led down to the narrow channel. At their foot boulders of every shape and size fought the progress of the water. The stream dashed itself against them, hurling spray into the air; the spray fell upon the snow and froze, fell upon the boulders and froze, or drained back into the stream, freezing in icicles of marvelous forms. The water, colored doubtless by the mosses and weeds below its surface, was green,—a cold, pale green,—with something of the cruelty of a winter ocean in its tones. Now and then we met and passed sleds heavily laden with lumber or logs. One load of birch logs was on fire at the hinder end, and the driver was warming his hands at the blaze. A few poor farms lined the road at points where small patches of tillable land were to be found between the rocky fingers of Moat. As we passed one of these farms a flock of two dozen or more snow-buntings rose from a field full of tall weed-stalks and whirled over us singing. Their sweet notes fell on us as holy water falls on a kneeling congregation.

The road grew steeper, and then it crossed the river, passing through a huge covered bridge, and soon we found ourselves inside of the portals of Chocorua and Moat, with the high ridge of Bear Mountain, covered with black spruces, barring our westward way. The wall of sullen forest seemed without a cleft, yet the raging river which met us told of a way somewhere, to be found by retracing its channel.

In the midst of this gloomy hollow in the hills we found a slab village. A dozen or fifteen houses stood here, but no smoke curled from their chimneys. Last September every house was occupied; now the foxes roam through the deserted settlement unmolested. The sawmill which had created the village had been burned and the whole population had vanished almost as swiftly as the smoke of the ruins. Not so the hideous scars left by the lumberman’s axe. They will remain for many a day.

By a series of sharp ascents we gained and passed through the rift in the mountain wall made centuries ago by the imprisoned waters. In this rift at the eastern foot of Bear Mountain, only a few steps from the roadside, are the picturesque falls of Swift River. The treacherous ice and the gathering darkness forbade our going to the giddy margin of the fall, and we dashed on into the hidden valley, the narrow, mountain-girdled intervale of which we were in search. As we left the forest fringes of Bear Mountain behind us and emerged in the plain, a gorgeous winter sunset gave us welcome. Over the blue of the upper sky, in which Jupiter alone sparkled faintly, were scattered countless flakes of rosy cloud. Below them a broad black band of cloud cut the sky at the level of several mountain peaks, and below this sinister bar, showing only in the gaps between the mountains, was a space of greenish silver, into which thousands of spruces reared their slender spires.

Taking fresh courage, our horse carried us over the fifteenth mile at racing speed. The road was level. On the right the flat, white intervale shone in the pale light as in distant ages the face of the great mountain lake shone in silent winter nights. Westward, across the end of the intervale, were Tripyramid, Kancamagus, and Osceola mountains; northward, Green’s Cliffs, Carrigain, Lowell, Owl’s Head, and Tremont Mountain stood shoulder to shoulder in double rank. Behind us, dark Bear Mountain concealed Moat, while spurs of Chocorua reached down to the road. On the left was Paugus, crouching at the foot of Passaconaway, which dominated over the valley with gloomy majesty. A bright light gleamed through the spruces, the Carrigain House lay there between black forest and pale snow, Mayhew’s lantern swung to and fro, and his deep voice welcomed us to his cheerful home in the heart of the wintry wilderness.

Those who live in the city have an idea that it is hard to keep warm in these northern farm-houses, with their single windows, thin walls, and wood fires. They are wrong. There is a degree of heat attainable in a small room, armed with an air-tight stove, which burns birch sticks or slabs almost as fast as they can be fed to it, that is able to hold its own against the equator at midsummer. It takes courage, on a cold morning before sunrise, to leave a warm bed to start a fire in one of these stoves; but when the fire is fully aroused, cold is put out of the question, or at least out of doors.

After a hot supper we put on our coats and furs and went out into the night. I had the same feeling of reverence and quiet that I have in going into a dimly-lighted cathedral. The stars flickered on high, the snow gleamed below, on every side mountain peaks guarded the narrow valley. In the spruce woods, which reach from the road back to Paugus, the darkness was intense. We listened. At first there seemed to be no sound to hear. Then the whisper of Swift River came out of the north, and the bark of a dog far up the valley told of a fox prowling too near the farmyard. Suddenly, from a bank of silver light back of Carrigain, two long tongues of pallid fire shot upward into the sky and trembled there, only to disappear as abruptly as they came. Although the dim auroral glow stayed in the north for some time, I saw no more radiating light.

It was but little after eight o’clock when we sought sleep and found it quickly between feathers below and mighty piles of blankets and comforters above.

Untroubled moonlight flooded Swift River intervale all night, and there was still more of moonlight than of daylight when our host came into our room in the morning to light our fire. The winter working-costume of our host deserves mention. His brown cardigan jacket was not remarkable, but his legs were marvelously encased. They began at the body with ample woolen trousers, half way between the hip and knee gave way to tightly-fitting scarlet wrappings which reached to low rubbers, covering the feet. Nimble of foot, and of wiry frame, the wearer of these remarkably unpuritanical nether garments was a most enlivening figure in the snow.

Encouraged by our fire, we arose with the sun. The mountains in the north were bathed in rosy light. Dark as were their forests, each of these mountains presented snow-covered ledges, or avalanche scars white with snow. Upon these white surfaces the sunlight fell with that soft blush which makes a winter sunrise so charmingly full of promise. We hastened out of doors as soon as dressed, and were at once greeted by joyous voices. A red squirrel in the dark spruces was whirling his watchman’s rattle; far away in the forest a woodpecker was drumming on a resonant tree-trunk; but near at hand, only across one snow-covered field, a chorus of bird voices quivered in the still, cold air. The air was cold, that was true. Zero was the point the mercury held to, and as we took long breaths of the pure air we spouted forth columns of white steam through our ice-hung beards. Trotting up the road, we sought the birds. We found them at the next farmhouse, perched by dozens on plum-trees, maple saplings by the road, and on the tips of a row of spruces opposite the farmyard. Some were in the road, others in the dooryard on the soiled snow where oxen had stood. In all, over a hundred were present. As we drew near, they rose and flew in waving circles over us, every bird singing until the whole air seemed tingling with sound. Then they came down in undulating lines, curves, angles, and plunges, which turned aside into a second flight in the sunlight. As they settled in groups in the various trees, I swept my glass over one cluster after another. Crossbills were the most numerous species, with goldfinches a close second, and pine finches third. The crossbills were in all stages and conditions of plumage, from rich red males blazing like dull coals plucked from the fire, to dingy brown. No white-winged crossbills seemed to be among them. Three months before, on a cold dewy morning in September, I stood on this spot and saw a flock of thirty crossbills in these same trees. Then a number of them were feeding in the edge of the pasture at a place where cattle had been salted in a shallow trough. I saw the birds tearing off fibres from the wood of the trough, so eager were they to get the salt which the wood had absorbed. This morning the salt trough was covered with snow, save one edge which protruded; but all around it the crossbills had trodden the snow into a path, showing that they were still salt-hungry. Acting upon this hint, I sprinkled the ground with grain and rock salt; but although birds were in all the trees, they paid no heed to my offerings.

After watching the crossbills for nearly an hour we walked westward. The birds had been more restless than we. Few of them remained still more than two or three minutes at a time. With sharp calls the crossbills would dash off, followed by the finches, and together, or in scattered detachments, they would wheel from one quarter of the heavens to another, perhaps returning in a moment to the same perch, perhaps vanishing in distance, not to reappear for many minutes. All the time that they were on the wing the air was full of their fragments of music.

Our way led for a mile through the level fields of the intervale. Five or six farmhouses or wood-cutters’ huts faced the straight road. At almost every house a few birds were seen, probably parts of the main flock. We also caught a glimpse of a large flock of snow-buntings flying helter-skelter over a field where yellow grasses were waving above the snow. At length our road came to an end at the banks of Swift River near the upper end of the intervale. The river was shallow, and so was a broad brook flowing into it at this point. The latter we found no great difficulty in crossing dry-shod, by going from one pile of stones and ice to another. Beyond the stream we entered a bit of primeval forest, only partly destroyed by lumbermen of an earlier generation, who seem to have been less grasping than their successors. In these woods we heard bird voices, and recognized the “quank, quank” of the red-bellied nuthatch, and the “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” of the titmouse. To call them nearer I hooted like an owl, and soon after, sharp alarm whistles almost exactly like those of a robin came from some unknown birds in a bunch of firs at a distance. Upon hooting again, I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply from a barred owl. A moment or so later we heard blue jays scolding him not far away.

After strolling through these woods and along the edge of Sabba Day Brook for an hour we turned towards home, treading in our previous footprints and thus avoiding crashing through the brittle crust of the snow. On reaching the spot where the owl had hooted, I used my metallic bird whistles and drew a crowd of chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, and blue jays. Then I hooted, the jays scolded noisily, and soon the owl replied. He came nearer by degrees, I hooting occasionally, he frequently. Finally he alighted in a tree just over us, but saw us at once and flew away. I continued hooting and he replied again, and came back within sight. Whenever he moved, the jays pursued him scolding, and they were still watching him when we resumed our march towards home.

CLIMBING BEAR MOUNTAIN IN THE
SNOW.

Monday, December 21. The moon ate up the clouds during the night, and at dawn the only remnants of what the evening before had looked like a storm were the cloud-caps upon Tripyramid and Kancamagus, and a band of mist across Church’s Pond at the western end of the intervale. We were dressing about seven o’clock when our host came to our door, saying, “If you want to see a fox, come quickly.” I ran into the east room and caught a last glimpse of Reynard trotting briskly over the snow towards the rising sun. He seemed to be following a scent which went in a somewhat wavy line across the field. At eight o’clock, just as we were striding up the road to pay a visit to the crossbills, a wild cry rang from the forest and echoed from end to end of the valley. It was the voice of the timber-eater, coming northward by his tortuous path from Upper Bartlett, and calling for his day’s food. The men at the lumber cars near our house bustled a little, and then started down the track to see the engine come in. On its arrival one heavily laden car was attached to it, and the train, thus made up, at once started back. Meanwhile, we had met two tree sparrows by the roadside and seen our crossbills and goldfinches on their favorite trees. They had, apparently, eaten none of the cracked corn sprinkled for them upon the snow. As the train was about to start, we boarded the engine and gained a promise from the engineer to let us out at the foot of Bear Mountain. Crossing Swift River, the train entered the spruce forest and began its winding journey towards Upper Bartlett. With my head out of the left-hand window, I absorbed all the novelty and beauty of the scene. Inside, the engineer sat at his window with his earnest eyes looking up the track, his strong hand upon crank or lever, and his face grave and quiet. The fireman poured oil into the sucking cups above the boiler; then he clanked the chain of the furnace door, peeped into the raging fire within, hurled into it a shovelful of coal dust, rammed it home with the poker, worked the movable lever which dumped ashes, and again poured oil into the sucking, choking cups.

Outside, the spruce forest hemmed us in, but rising above it headland after headland of black rocks, snow-incrusted ledges, and lofty spruces came into view, frowned upon us, and were left behind. A flock of blue jays crossed in front of the engine, a red squirrel whisked along a log by the track. Now the rails sloped up so that the engineer increased his power, then the track fell away so that all power was cut off. Trestle after trestle was crossed, strange piles of bark-covered logs which groaned under our weight as we rolled over them.

After traveling four miles to get ahead less than two, the engineer stopped for us to begin our climb up Bear Mountain. He leaned out of his window, giving us advice and wishing us a fair trip. Then he applied the power, and the great mass moved on through the notch towards Upper Bartlett. This short piece of rough road is operated solely to carry out lumber and logs; but if people wish to ride, they are taken without charge. It is said that if the road refused to take them they could compel it to run passenger trains.

The point at which the kindly engineer had stopped to leave us was the lower end of a series of lumber roads leading to the upper slopes of Bear Mountain. The mountain, once covered with an immense spruce forest, has now been stripped of the greater part of its valuable timber. Beginning at the main road in which we stood, dozens of minor roads held the mountain in their embrace. They reminded me of the tentacles of an enormous devil-fish. Near the focus of all these roads we found a log cabin and stables. The cabin was one of the best I have ever seen. It was about sixty feet long, and contained a room at each end and roofed space in the middle open at front and back. Near the house we heard bird voices, and I at once used my Spanish whistles. The effect was excellent. Four or five red-bellied nuthatches, one white-bellied, and a small flock of pine finches responded. The siskins were very noisy and quite restless. They were feeding on the seeds and buds of a tall birch. Leaving the hut at nine o’clock, we strolled up the snow-covered roads. The voices of birds were ever in our ears. Squirrel and rabbit tracks, with now and then the tracks of a fox, followed or cut the roads. The snow was five or six inches in depth and covered by a thin and brittle crust. In many places numbers of well-filled beechnuts were strewn upon the ground. This is beechnut year, and the squirrels have more than they can pick up. The snow in the road was easy to walk upon, the air was mild, the sun warm, the spruces rich with olive light and brilliantly contrasted with the deep blue sky against which our mountain towered. On each side of the narrow way “top wood” and branches were piled in ramparts. The many roads reaching up the mountain are in places set so closely together that their ramparts of top wood touch each other, forming almost impassable barriers.

It was in one of these tangles that I discovered two small woodpeckers at work tapping upon the trunks of two unhealthy spruces spared by the axe. I saw at a glance that the birds were unfamiliar in coloring, and I crawled in among the top wood to examine them more closely. To whistles, hooting, and squeaks they paid no attention, but kept on hammering the trees until small flakes of loose bark flew at every blow. My crashing through snow and branches startled one bird, but the other stood his ground until I got within about fifteen feet of him. My glass brought out every detail of his plumage. Upon his head was a yellow cap, his throat was snowy white, his sides were finely, delicately barred with black and white, his back was largely black, but down his spine ran a belt of black and white cross-lining. Instead of having four toes like the downy and other common woodpeckers, this stranger from the north had but three toes. He was the ladder-backed woodpecker of the great northern forests. During the twenty minutes that I watched him he made no vocal sound, but worked incessantly, tearing away bark, and drilling into the trunk of the spruce. When he had inspected the tree to its highest part he flew several rods to rejoin his mate.

At last the roads ended and we entered the remnant of dark forest which crowns the mountain. There was a chill in the gloomy shades. The snow was softer and deeper here. It covered innumerable boulders closely wedged together between the stems of the spruces. On the sides of these rocks we could see delicate mosses imprisoned in the ice and snow. At frequent intervals we encountered masses of fallen timber wrecked by hurricanes. Another obstacle to our ascent was the dense growth of young spruces which in places made walking almost impossible. In the edge of an open space in this forest we called together the birds by means of my whistle. A flock of juncos appeared in a pile of top wood; red-bellied nuthatches came and clung head downwards on the nearest trunks and quanked at us, kinglets bustled in, peeped at us, and bustled out, a dozen or more red crossbills alighted close above us and to our satisfaction made the note which had so puzzled us yesterday and which sounds like the robin’s alarm-note. Best of all, a flock of sixty pine siskins came into the nearest trees, and one or two of them came down to the level of our heads and questioned us plaintively. The body of sweet sound made in a conversational way by these gentle, cheerful little birds, was amazing.

We reached the summit at about noon, and were fully repaid for the three hours’ climb. During the ascent, charming views of Passaconaway, Tripyramid, Kancamagus, and the dazzlingly white fields of the intervale had greeted us whenever we stopped to rest. Now were added Chocorua, Moat, Pequawket, Mount Washington and his supporting mountains, the Franconia group, Carrigain, and the Bartlett valley. Moat and Chocorua are much alike from this point of view. They are both comparatively treeless mountains and were consequently snowy white. Their outlines suggest combing breakers. Chocorua, being under the low-hanging sun, was reflecting light from every crusted snowbank and ice-wrapped boulder. It was like a mountain of cut glass. Mount Washington was unobscured, and in the noonday sun as colorless as summer clouds. This snowy whiteness of its upper mass wound in streams down its sides, as soft frosting pours in grooves down the sides of a birthday cake. Between these streams of whiteness ran upward long fingers of dark forest. Most of the other mountains in sight were wooded to their summits, and so contrasted sharply in their sombre colorings with their snowy rivals.

The narrow ridge which forms the top of Bear Mountain is blockaded by fallen timber. Squirming through the tangle, we saw all the views and then sat down in the sun on piles of spruce branches and ate our lunch. Having no water, we quenched our thirst by mingling snow with our bread and eating them together. As we ate and rested, looking across a wooded valley toward Carrigain and the Franconias, a flock of white-winged crossbills alighted above our heads and talked to us. Several were rosy males in the perfection of plumage. Many more siskins came and went, and so did a flock of four red nuthatches and several kinglets.

Our descent was rapid and amusing. We plunged downward from tree to tree with long strides and slides, sometimes falling, often coasting faster and farther than we wished. Three more flocks of crossbills, many dozens of siskins, and a scattering of nuthatches gladdened us as we pushed down the slopes. A hawk, too, came quite near to us, soaring at last so as to clear the mountain’s crest. He was rather small, and very quick and jerky in his wing motions. He circled from left to right in small curves.

While walking home on the railway we were fortunate enough to call to us a small flock of pine grosbeaks, five or six only, and having no red birds in their number so far as I could see. Red squirrels were ubiquitous. I think we saw, or heard the chattering of, at least twenty during the day. I have been told so often that chipmunks keep closely housed in winter that when one squealed at me from his hole near the track I did not trust either my own ears or those of my friend. Seeing is believing, however, and a dozen or two rods farther on another chipmunk stayed on his log long enough for us to count his stripes and wish him a merry Christmas.

We reached home at about half past four, just as the western sky was filled with rosy light by a sun already set. Venus, close to the dark rim of Passaconaway, and Jupiter, in the higher sky, summoned the stars to their posts, and encouraged us to beg for supper.

IN THE PAUGUS WOODS.

Just opposite our house, which stood on the north side of the road, facing south towards Paugus, was a black forest of spruces. Into this we plunged on Tuesday morning, not knowing what might lie within. The silence of the gloom was broken by the sound of falling bits of ice and drops of melting snow. Bird notes, too, could be heard, and now and then a red squirrel chattered. The trunks of the trees stood closely together, and thousands of small dead branches radiated from the trunks and interlaced, opposing our progress. The crashing of these twigs as we broke through them, accompanied by the crunching of the snow-crust under our feet, noisily announced our coming. At intervals we found masses of fallen timber, the wreck of fierce storms, and brooks covered with thin ice and misleading snow, through which we slumped into cold water beneath. Every few paces rabbit tracks dotted the soft film of snow which lay upon the crust. If the tracks which we crossed during our three or four mile walk could have been measured in all their meanderings, I think the aggregate of miles traversed by the rabbits of that locality would have been found to rival the railway mileage of New Hampshire. From time to time we stopped to call birds to us by the aid of my whistles. I think I called eight or nine times, and in each instance birds appeared promptly. Usually pine finches came first, whirling through the upper air like burnt paper driven by the wind. As they passed over us, they would catch the sound of the whistles more distinctly and begin a series of undulatory circles. Then one or two would drop straight down into a leafless tree, or upon the tips of the spruces, and the rest would follow them, sometimes twenty going into one tree. Their sweet queryings filled the air, and drew other birds to the focus of sound, among others a number of purple finches and a white-bellied nuthatch. Kinglets came very near to us when we were well hidden; so near that the brilliant color on their dainty heads could be seen with perfect distinctness. There were more chickadees in these woods than in the other places we had visited, and I examined them all with great care, hoping to find a Hudson Bay titmouse. Two flocks of the common species came, and produced no northern birds, but at a third rally of nuthatches, finches, and kinglets, a strange voice made itself heard. I knew it for something different from a chickadee at once, and yet it was titmouse language. Squeaking vigorously, I called the stranger down to me. At first I thought it was a chickadee; then he sputtered out his “dee-dee” and showed his brownish head and great chestnut patch on his flank, and I knew he was from Hudson Bay. Three others joined him and gave me ample chance to inspect their points. I had the feeling that they had less character and spirit than our blackcap titmouse. Their voices were weaker and more petulant and their general appearance less positive and aggressive.

Once I caught a glimpse of a big white hare bounding away from us through a jungle of young spruces. He was so nearly the color of the snow that my eyes found it difficult to follow him.

After going rather more than two miles through the spruce tangle, we entered an old logging road much used by rabbits, foxes, and grouse, and, following it northward, we made our way home.

About 3.30 P. M. the baying of a hound attracted our notice, and I walked up the road to see what he was doing. He soon appeared at the edge of the spruce woods, and I followed him into their dark shades. After a moment’s hesitation he took the back track and was soon almost out of earshot on a hot scent. Not long after, my friend left the house and, crossing Swift River by the railway bridge, followed the rails northward through the forest. Soon he heard the hound baying to the eastward, down river. Then a snapping of branches and crunching of crust came to his ears, and a moment later a deer broke through the bushes, dashed up the embankment, and, turning at right angles, came in weary leaps towards him. My friend stood perfectly still, too much astonished to move. The deer came to within twelve paces of him, then saw him, and with a bound left the track and plunged into the woods on the western side. A few moments later the hunters came up and my friend demanded what they were doing, and whether the hound was their dog, in so severe a tone that the poachers denied their interest in the dog and made off into the woods. Meanwhile, I wandered southward through the spruces, now hearing the hound, now losing his melancholy baying. No small birds were to be seen or heard. They had vanished to their night abiding-places. Two grouse rose noisily and went into the tops of the trees. Red squirrels continued to bustle about until after dusk. As light faded in the sky, the forest grew very dark, and fallen trees, stumps, and bushes rearranged themselves into weird shapes which seemed to move against the vague background of the snow. The silence of the cold black and white woods became oppressive, and the chill of night increased moment by moment. The baying of the hound, lost to the eastward, had come again from the north, and finally moved over towards the west. It was after five o’clock, and the dog had followed his chase since eleven. Standing still, listening to the hound, and peering into the trees in search of the grouse, I began to grow drowsy, and to long to sink down upon the soft snow and go to sleep. It required a strong effort of will to rouse myself and to start my benumbed feet upon their homeward way. As soon as I moved, the grouse, which had been budding in a high maple, flew away deeper into the gloom, and then utter silence settled down upon the deserted forest.

When we awoke, December 24, the day promised to be fine. Blue sky covered the area above Carrigain, and a cool west wind swept across the fields from which much of the snow had disappeared. We had planned to climb another of the mountains near the railway track, but while we were breakfasting, the engine came in, and, finding no cars loaded, went out again at once. By nine o’clock clouds had gathered and caps had settled down upon many of the peaks. We heard crossbills calling as we left the house. Their short, sharp call is much like the English sparrow’s alarm-note. A flock of nine settled on the spruces by the salting-trough as we went past. One was a red bird, two had a trace of red, five were brown, with some streaking on the sides of the breast, and one was quite yellow. One of them was gnawing a long shoot of spruce which had already been chewed free of needles and left brown and forlorn. Unfortunately we took a dog with us, a black mongrel with pleading eyes and no wisdom. He loved to zigzag over the country in front of us, and to bark at red squirrels. He was a nuisance, but very sweet-tempered, as many fools are. We took him, hoping that he might hunt rabbits, but we wished him in Jericho long before the forenoon was over.

Although cloudy all day, no rain fell until evening; consequently birds were astir and abundant. We left the highway at a point where an old logging road led southward through the spruce swamp, parallel to a stream bearing the odd name of Oliverian Brook. Continued far enough over ledges and through “harricanes,” the road would pass between Paugus and Passaconaway and come out into the Birch Intervale, Tamworth. After going in for a couple of miles the road bends to the left, following the east branch of the Oliverian Brook up to the spruce forests on Paugus.

We made our first halt in a dense spruce and hemlock thicket and called for birds. They came from all quarters until dozens of the usual kinds were around us. After a while seven or eight blue jays flitted past, one by one, attracted mainly by my hooting. They came within easy gunshot and peered at us with suspicion and anger in their wicked eyes. They are villains in spite of their attractive dress. Suddenly they flew with cries of alarm, and I saw a large light-colored hawk sweep past and alight in a tall dead tree just out of range. The dog at this crisis made his appearance and rushed back and forth with ill-timed energy. The hawk flew a little farther away and was on his guard against stalking. The jays also vanished, and soon the smaller birds left also. Among the latter was one Hudson Bay titmouse.

In the depths of the spruce swamp the snow had not wasted much, and it was soft enough to take the imprint of passing feet. We found the tracks of a deer, a mink, and a ’coon. Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and grouse had been that way also. Several times, in crossing fresh fox tracks, I got a whiff of odor which I fancied might be that of the fox. It suggested the smell of hamamelis. The swamp trees were draped with gray moss, one of the most striking of nature’s decorations in this latitude. Many of the trees were thickly grown with green lichens, which, being wet, were two or three times as bright in coloring as when dry. In spots where the snow had melted, showing patches of the swamp floor, mayflower, checkerberry, ranunculus, partridge-berry, ferns, and other leaves showed their vivid coloring, or were replaced in very damp ground by sphagnum.

As we neared the slopes of Paugus the trees became larger and the forest clear of undergrowth. Our road—a very old one—was most clearly marked by being densely grown with weeds, and an inferior crop of trees and bushes. As compared with the clear forest, the road was a ribbon-like jungle. Its young growth was composed of viburnums, slender maples, and cherry-trees. Spots where the cattle had been fed could be picked out by means of the asters, clover, and other flowers and weeds which had sprung up from the seeds sown by the fodder.

In the edge of the high growth we halted a second time, and called the birds together. They failed not to respond, and when their chattering was at its height the familiar “who-hoo, hoo-hoo, who-hoo-hoo-hooo” of a barred owl was heard. The birds became silent and most of them disappeared, perhaps to scold the real owl. Many of the trees in this belt of forest were nearly a hundred feet in height.

Well up towards the high ridges of Paugus our road crossed the Oliverian Brook. The point chosen twenty years ago by the lumberman-engineer for building his bridge was a ravine of singularly picturesque character. Thirty feet below its two precipitous banks the noisy torrent struggled among its boulders. Dozens of dark spruces overhung it, and rank upon rank of evergreens lined the banks. In the bed of the brook the lumbermen had built up in “cob-house” fashion two log abutments about twenty-five feet high. From each bank immense logs were run out to rest upon the abutments, and similar logs formed the central span. Then scores of shorter logs were laid across from girder to girder, and all were firmly bound together by heavy side-logs laid on top of and parallel to the girders. We decided to cross this bridge, although it was falling to pieces. Many of the short logs had rotted off and fallen through. We walked upon the girders, the whole bridge trembling ominously under our tread. Our dog, foolish as he was, knew enough not to cross this bridge, for after inspecting it he whined, ran down the bank, plunged through the stream, and clambered up the other side.

At half past two we had reached rather high land. The road was fast climbing the flank of Paugus, following a minor branch of the Oliverian Brook. Just across this little run rose the gloomiest grove of spruces we had seen. It stood upon a bank fifty feet above the road and brook. I clambered up to it, and forced my way through its dense tangle. To my surprise I found that it was only about thirty feet wide, growing on a mere tongue of land between two mountain gorges. On the farther side the land fell off abruptly two or three hundred feet, and down in the shades below still another branch of the Oliverian fretted in its bed. Beyond it was another ridge, over which, a mile and more away, grim Passaconaway frowned across at me. A white cloud-banner streamed from his spruce-crowned head. To the serious detriment of my clothes I climbed a tall spruce on the edge of the ravine in order to determine our position. Behind us was Paugus, its summits within comparatively easy reach. From them I could have looked down at my snow-covered home by Chocorua lakes. Westward, just across the forest basin on whose edge we stood, was Passaconaway. Northward the eye wandered downward over gently sloping tree-tops to the broad snowy intervale with its cozy farms and its one long, straight road, running from west to east, from the forests by Sabba Day Brook, down Swift River, through its gorges towards Conway. Above and beyond the intervale were the northern mountains which lock it in from the rest of the world,—Bear Mountain on the right, then Owl’s Head, Carrigain, Green’s Cliffs, Sugar Hill, and Kancamagus. The notch east of Carrigain is one of the grandest rifts in the White Mountain panorama. It is like a black gateway opened for storms and wailing winds to sweep through.

The black grove on its narrow tongue of land hanging between two gorges was alive with birds, and I fancied it to be their sleeping-place. Chickadees, kinglets, and a brown creeper were in possession and resented my intrusion. It was just such a place as I have always imagined a small bird’s dormitory to be.

We returned, descending by another logging road leading due north to the intervale road about a mile below the Carrigain House. This logging road is one of the most picturesque I have ever seen. It follows closely a brook of considerable size which is one long series of pools, falls, and dashing rapids. The forest on both sides of the brook bed is of high growth and generous proportions. Every few moments a vista view of Bear Mountain charmed us as we wound down the steep incline, while behind and above us the ledges of Paugus, gleaming with ice and capped by snow, showed at intervals through the trees.

AT THE FOOT OF PASSACONAWAY.

Wednesday, December 23, dawned under a damp sky. Tripyramid kept on his nightcap, and patches of mist clung to the dark precipice of Passaconaway. The mountains looked higher and more threatening than on previous days, and they seemed closer to us than when the sun shone. A whisper of falling drops and settling snow ruffled the morning calm. Nevertheless, patches of blue sky showed in the west, and once or twice a silvery spot in the clouds suggested the sun’s burning through. We went first to see our favorite flock of birds at the cattle-trough in the pasture. They were there in full force, nearly if not quite a hundred strong. They allowed me to come within about twenty feet of them, and to watch them narrowly through my glass. Rather more than half were red crossbills. Of the remainder, two thirds were pine finches, and one third goldfinches. No red-polls were to be seen. The coloring in the crossbills was amazingly diverse. There were very brilliant males with cinnabar tints wherever such color is ever found. From this maximum of intensity their coloring graded downward through partial red markings on the one hand, and through gradually fading red markings on the other. I saw one bird with red on his rump only. The fading from red to yellow yielded many gradations of red and yellow or orange down to pure gold. The brown birds were the more numerous, and they seemed to have various combinations of light and dark, with now and then suggestions of bright tints. In some individuals the mandibles crossed in one way, and in others the opposite way. In size the crossbills varied widely. Often, in glancing quickly at a group, I mistook the smaller, duller birds for pine finches. A dozen times in as many minutes the flock whirled upwards and round and round, showering the air with their delicious medley music. Generally from three to six old birds remained in one of the two spruces near the fence by the trough, and a sharp call from them brought the flock down again like a fall of hail.

When we had walked a mile up the valley a shower struck us, and we waited a few moments under the shelter of an old house from which the wall boards had been removed. We heard sweet bird notes, but could not locate the singers. When we turned to go, however, a flock of sixteen snow-buntings rose from a field where they had been feeding in the yellow grasses, and vibrated away with merry calls until swallowed up in fog and rain.

The wasting of the snow under the hot sun of Monday and the cloudy sky but mild air of Tuesday had left many plants and dried flower-stalks exposed to view. Plum-colored masses of berry bushes encroached upon the wide expanse of snow as headlands reach out into a calm sea. Tiny forests of wiry grass reared their heads above the snow. In color they were what is called “sandy.” Goldenrod and aster stems, holding aloft dry and brittle suggestions of long-lost flowers; the heads of brunella, looking like chess castles, and of the Indian pipe, upright and pineapple-shaped; and many delicate hairlike stems from which all trace of leaf and flower had departed, broke the evenness of the snow fields, and were beautiful in an unassuming, unconscious, unintentional way. Indeed, many of them had never shone with beauty before. In summer, submerged in the wilderness of green things which crowd the unplowed intervale, they could not have been found by the eye of any one in chance passing. But in winter, the time of their nominal beauty gone, they lingered in their old age, and looked more beautiful in their bleached simplicity than those summer flowers which never gave them a chance to reveal what was in them.

At the end of the intervale, instead of plunging into the woods where our barred owl lived, we turned southward towards the foot of Passaconaway. The rough road led through the forest to a saw-mill under the shoulder of the first ridge of the mountains. Downes Brook had been partially dammed to form a pond, upon which hundreds of logs lay awaiting their fate. At the foot of the dam stood the mill. Its lower story was an engine-room. A steam-engine of considerable power worked four saws, a planer, and an endless chain used to draw in logs from the ice. At the dam end these logs were being drawn in upon the floor, measured, and marked. Then they went to the first and largest saw, which cut off their slabs, reduced them to boards or planks, and sent them along to the second saw to have their ends squared. From the second saw they went to the third, where their sides were made equal, and hence through the planer, out at the lower end of the mill, down a chute to a platform where they were piled, ready to be hauled away. The fourth saw was used to cut the slabs and edge-cuttings into the right lengths for fuel; for not only the engine demon in the under story fed on wood, but all the people in the intervale burned slabs. About twelve men were employed in the upper part of the mill, some Americans, some French Canadians, and some Irishmen. One young Frenchman was a picture of dirty beauty and health. His jet-black hair, reeking with oil, was plastered in a curve over his forehead. His mustache was curling, and his snapping eyes, dark skin, rosy cheeks, and powerful but rather gross body made a striking picture for a day laborer.

Leaving the mill with its distracting noise, we ascended the main logging road towards Passaconaway. It follows Downes Brook southward, now clinging to one hillside, then crossing the ice-bound torrent by a rude but massive bridge of spruce logs to stay for a while on the opposite bank. On each side the timber had been cut and hauled away. The survival of the unfittest is the rule in the forest after the lumber thief has been through it. He leaves the crooked, the feeble, and the diseased trees, and packs around their roots the fertilizing branches and tops of the logs which he hauls away. On our way up we met several teams coming down the slippery, sloppy road. Two strong Canadian horses, low sleds, three great logs chained together and to the sleds, and an oily, tobacco-chewing French Canadian made up a team. We stopped and talked to one driver, who said that if the snow went off they would keep on with their hauling, using the runners on the bare ground. While he chatted with us he fed his nigh horse on pieces of chewing tobacco, which the horse took from his fingers or bit from the plug. We were told later that this is a common form of attention for the drivers to show their favorite horses. The horse swallowed the tobacco. About half a mile above the mill we came to the logging camp. There was a compact log stable, a log smithy manned by a sturdy Frenchman in moccasins who spoke very little English, and a living-house made of slabs covered with tarred paper well battened down. The house stood on a ribbon of ground between the road and the steep edge of the torrent. Entering through a low shed at the southern or upper end of the shanty, we found ourselves in the kitchen and dining-room. The room contained two cook-stoves and three long, narrow board tables with benches facing them. The tables were set for thirty-five men, allowing about twenty inches of space for each man. We were welcomed by the cook, a New Englander, who boasted of having cooked in lumber camps for twenty years. He prided himself on his bread, and cut a loaf to show its quality. I never ate better bread anywhere. The dishes on the table were simple,—tin plates, tin cups, bottles of vinegar, pitchers of maple syrup, tins holding mountains of yellow butter, and plates piled high with “fried holes,” as doughnuts are graphically termed. Baked beans are a staple dish, but I noticed a barrel of pork at the door, and lying on the woodpile a big bundle of codfish and a side of beef certified as good by the Hon. Jere. Rusk.

The sleeping-room of the camp was not attractive. It was dark, hot, stuffy in odor, and overcrowded. Rude bunks, three tiers deep, lined the side walls. The men turn into these pens with their clothes on, often wet with rain or snow. Teamsters are roused at four A. M.; the rest of a “crew” somewhat later. In winter, four A. M. and midnight are equally gloomy, and if either is colder it is the morning hour. The cook said he could remember but one case of serious illness in his logging camps. The grip, he said, seldom kept a man from work more than one or two days. He expressed great fondness for birds, and spoke of the daily visits of crossbills, and in some years of moose-birds. “They know their friends, as most dumb beasts do,” he declared, and went on to tell of a terrible storm of snow and sleet which came one winter, threatening death to his pets. “I just opened my camp doors and called and whistled to my birds, and in they came, dozens of ’em, until every beam and perch in the camp was full of ’em.”