ched. The first thing now in order is to kindle
a fire, and, if its light reveals the coon, to shoot him; if not, to
fell the tree with an axe. If this happens to be too great a
sacrifice of timber and of strength, to sit down at the foot of the
tree till morning.

But with March our interest in these phases of animal life, which
winter has so emphasized and brought out, begins to decline. Vague
rumors are afloat in the air of a great and coming change. We are
eager for Winter to be gone, since he, too, is fugitive and cannot
keep his place. Invisible hands deface his icy statuary; his chisel
has lost its cunning. The drifts, so pure and exquisite, are now
earth-stained and weather-worn,--the flutes and scallops, and fine,
firm lines, all gone; and what was a grace and an ornament to the
hills is now a disfiguration. Like worn and unwashed linen appear
the remains of that spotless robe with which he clothed the world as
his bride.

But he will not abdicate without a struggle. Day after day he
rallies his scattered forces, and night after night pitches his
white tents on the hills, and would fain regain his lost ground;
but the young prince in every encounter prevails. Slowly and
reluctantly the gray old hero retreats up the mountain, till finally
the south rain comes in earnest, and in a night he is dead.

II

A WHITE DAY AND A RED FOX

The day was indeed white, as white as three feet of snow and a
cloudless St. Valentine's sun could make it. The eye could not look
forth without blinking, or veiling itself with tears. The patch of
plowed ground on the top of the hill, where the wind had blown the
snow away, was as welcome to it as water to a parched tongue. It was
the one refreshing oasis in this desert of dazzling light. I sat
down upon it to let the eye bathe and revel in it. It took away the
smart like a poultice. For so gentle and on the whole so beneficent
an element, the snow asserts itself very proudly. It takes the world
quickly and entirely to itself. It makes no concessions or
compromises, but rules despotically. It baffles and bewilders the
eye, and it returns the sun glare for glare. Its coming in our
winter climate is the hand of mercy to the earth and to everything
in its bosom, but it is a barrier and an embargo to everything that
moves above.

We toiled up the long steep hill, where only an occasional
mullein-stalk or other tall weed stood above the snow. Near the top
the hill was girde