"Well, child, I suppose so, since your heart seems set upon it. Do be careful, Donald, and get back before sundown."
We followed the print of the bear's feet across the meadow behind the barn, and then around the curve of a low range of hills to the edge of the forest, walking Indian file, Ellen between us, and stepping, as I bade her, in my tracks. The air was so crisp and buoyant that we were half intoxicated by long, full breaths of it, and went skimming over the frozen surface as if, like fabled Mercury, we had wings to our heels. The meadows gleamed and scintillated, and the edge of the hill's undulating outline shone in opalescent lines, as if the prying rays of the sun, forcing their way through the thin snow clouds at the eastern horizon, were disclosing a ledge of hidden jewels. The world all about us was downy soft, radiantly pure, and familiar fields and hills took on a strange newness, in which perspective was confused and outlines blurred; white fields melted into white hills, hills merged into white sky, and one might, it seemed, walk out of this world into the next without noting the point of transition.
The forest was stranger still, and even more beautiful. There was but little snow on the ground, and the dry leaves under it rustled beneath one's feet with homely, cheerful sound, but overhead stretched a marvelous canopy of graceful feather laden branches, each giant of the forest being powdered as carefully as any court dame, and, like her, gaining a sort of distinction for its beauty by this emphasis to its height and grace.
"Am I walking too fast for you, Ellen?" I asked soon after we had started.
"No; but you step too far," she called back merrily. So I shortened my stride a little, and again insisted on carrying her rifle, getting this time her consent.
"The forest is like a place enchanted," said Ellen with rapt face, as we waited at the edge of the woods for Thomas to catch up. "How warm and snug one could sleep under that low boughed pine, yonder; I'd like to live in the forest were there no panthers, wolves, or bears."
"But the beasts have possession, and sometimes I almost wonder if we have a right to drive them with gun and knife out of their inherited haunts."
"As we do the Indians."
"I have more sympathy for wild beasts than for the red savages; the beasts are not treacherous, nor cruel for sport."
"Have you lost the bear's track, Don?" interrupted Thomas; "if not, what are you stopping for?"