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At times, the pointed nose of a muskrat wove its way across the river, leaving a shining ripple in its wake. In the deep woods squirrels barked and chattered. Frost-loosened crimson leaves came whirling down, settling in a bright blanket that covered the water several feet from the bank, and unfortunate bees that had fallen into the river struggled frantically to gain a footing on them.
But his pistol spoke again and they recoiled, growling, disheartened, cursing the false hope that had re-nerved them. It was his last shot, however. He had a heavy clasp-knife such as salmon-anglers carry. He laid his empty pistols on the rocky ledge. Very patiently he felt for frost-loosened masses of rock, detached them one by one and noiselessly piled them along the ledge.
In that region, the river banks are encumbered here and there with great logs, partly burned by forest fires, reaped by gales or brought down from the hillsides by falls of frost-loosened soil. A flood higher than usual sets them floating, and on subsiding sometimes leaves them packed in a gorge or stranded in a shallow to wait for the next big rise.
It was on the nearer bank of this stream, where, a little below, it curved closer to the house, that her father, falling with a frost-loosened rock, had received his fatal injury. Out of the pure idleness of despondency it occurred to the girl that, from the point at which she had now arrived, she might obtain a new view of the small landslip which had caused the calamity.
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