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The sun shone bright and warm; the mayflowers blossomed; the trailing arbutus scented the air; everywhere the grass and the leaves looked fresh and green; swallows flitted in and out of the barn door; the blue-birds twittered; a meadow-lark caroled forth his pure melody, and the busy hum of bees came from the fragrant apple-blossoms.

And thus the winter slipped away and blue-birds dipped again in the spring beyond the corral. And again alfalfa perfumed the alkaline dust that followed the birds into the Reserve; and then again, frost laid waste the struggling gardens of high altitudes; and for another winter Doug followed traps, varying the monotony by getting out pine-logs for his ranch house.

When Jim Fenton waked from his long and refreshing sleep, after his weary tramp and his row upon the river, the sun was shining brightly, the blue-birds were singing, the partridges were drumming, and a red squirrel, which even Turk would not disturb, was looking for provisions in his cabin, or eyeing him saucily from one of the beams over his head.

Then he put on his finest garments, soft linen, and silken stockings, a blue vest and scarlet trousers, and a fur coat of sealskin, held by buttons made of jewels, and a belt with golden buckles. After he was dressed he ordered his magic sledge to be harnessed, and on the front placed six cuckoos and seven blue-birds that they might sing and charm the Northland maiden.

On he went, over hill and dale, with the cuckoos and blue-birds singing on the sledge, and then he drove along the seashore to the north in a cloud of snow and sand and mist and sea-foam, looking out for Wainamoinen's vessel.

Then the fact of imprisonment first presented itself, and they vainly endeavored to escape through the interstices of the cage, never once guided by their instinct to return to liberty through the route by which they had entered. Among the different kinds of birds captured in this way, mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover were the most numerous.

Even the little wrens bickered with the blue-birds, and showed their selfishness and jealousy in chasing them from the crumbs she impartially spread for all in common. So at seven she was a wise little woman, and said to her nurse one day, "I do not care for pets any more: they all grow up nasty." Was Solomon's "All is vanity" truer?

Have been loafing here deep among the trees, shafts of tall pines, oak, hickory, with a thick undergrowth of laurels and grapevines the ground cover'd everywhere by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss everything solitary, ancient, grim. Blue-birds, robins, meadow-larks begin to appear. Next day, 9th. A snowstorm in the morning, and continuing most of the day.

Suddenly a young girl, jewelled with multi-coloured diamonds of paint, and jingling all over with little bells, came dancing into the ring, beating a tiny, painted drum as she advanced. She wore only a narrow sporran of blue-birds' feathers to her knees, glistening blue moccasins of the same plumage, and a feathered head dress of the scarlet fire-bird.

Then the fact of imprisonment first presented itself, and they vainly endeavored to escape through the interstices of the cage, never once guided by their instinct to return to liberty through the route by which they had entered. Among the different kinds of birds captured in this way, mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover were the most numerous.