shed on,
though the hills were slippery and the creeks swollen. Water was
everywhere, but the sun came out, lighting the woods into radiant
greens and purples. Robins and sparrows sang ecstatically, and
violets, dandelions, and various kinds of berries were in odorous
bloom. A vine with a blue flower, new to me, attracted my attention,
also a yellow blossom of the cowslip variety. This latter had a form
not unlike a wild sunflower.

Here for the first time I heard a bird singing a song quite new to
me. He was a thrushlike little fellow, very shy and difficult to see
as he sat poised on the tip of a black pine in the deep forest. His
note was a clear cling-ling, like the ringing of a steel triangle.
_Chingaling, chingaling_, one called near at hand, and then farther
off another answered, _ching, ching, chingaling-aling_, with immense
vim, power, and vociferation.

Burton, who had spent many years in the mighty forests of Washington,
said: "That little chap is familiar to me. Away in the pines where
there is no other bird I used to hear his voice. No matter how dark
it was, I could always tell when morning was coming by his note, and
on cloudy days I could always tell when the sunset was coming by
hearing him call."

To me his phrase was not unlike the metallic ringing cry of a sort of
blackbird which I heard in the torrid plazas of Mexico. He was very
difficult to distinguish, for the reason that he sat so high in the
tree and was so wary. He was very shy of approach. He was a plump,
trim little fellow of a plain brown color, not unlike a small robin.

There was another cheerful little bird, new to me also, which uttered
an amusing phrase in two keys, something like _tee tay, tee tay, tee
tay_, one note sustained high and long, followed by another given on
a lower key. It was not unlike to the sound made by a boy with a
tuning pipe. This, Burton said, was also a familiar sound in the
depths of the great Washington firs. These two cheery birds kept us
company in the gloomy, black-pine forest, when we sorely needed
solace of some kind.

Fraser Lake was also very charming, romantic enough to be the scene
of Cooper's best novels. The water was deliciously clear and cool,
and from the farther shore great mountains rose in successive sweeps
of dark green foothills. At this time we felt well satisfied with
ourselves and the trip. With a gleam in his eyes Burton said, "This
is the kind of thing our folks think we're doing