fragrant woods resting under the soft haze like a great bouquet
of Nature's own culling, birds, bees and squirrels frolicking all
day long amidst the trees, yet doing an astonishing amount of
work in gathering each one his harvest for the cold dark days
that were coming.

At daylight, from the top of a hill, I looked down on a little
clearing and saw the first signs of the game I was seeking. There
had been what old people call a duck-frost. In the meadows and
along the fringes of the woods the white rime lay thick and
powdery on grass and dead leaves; every foot that touched it
left a black mark, as if seared with a hot iron, when the sun
came up and shone upon it. Across the field three black trails
meandered away from the brook; but alas! under the fringe of
evergreen was another trail, that of a man, which crept and
halted and hid, yet drew nearer and nearer the point where the
three deer trails vanished into the wood. Then I found powder
marks, and some brush that was torn by buck shot, and three
trails that bounded away, and a tiny splash of deeper red on a
crimson maple leaf. So I left the deer to the early hunter and
wandered away up the hill for a long, lazy, satisfying day in the
woods alone.

Presently I came to a low brush fence running zigzag through
the woods, with snares set every few yards in the partridge and
rabbit runs. At the third opening a fine cock partridge swung
limp and lifeless from a twitch-up. The cruel wire had torn his
neck under his beautiful ruff; the broken wing quills showed
how terrible had been his struggle. Hung by the neck till dead!--
an atrocious fate to mete out to a noble bird. I followed the