Often when it rains in the valleys, and raises
the salmon rivers to meet your expectations, a thin covering of new snow
covers these white fields; and then, if you go there, you will find the
new page written all over with the feet of birds and beasts. The mice
especially love these snow-fields for some unknown reason. All along the
edges you find the delicate, lacelike tracery which shows where little
feet have gone on busy errands or played together in the moonlight; and
if you watch there awhile you will surely see Tookhees come out of the
moss and scamper across a bit of snow and dive back to cover under the
moss again, as if he enjoyed the feeling of the cold snow under his feet
in the summer sunshine. He has tunnels there, too, going down to solid
ice, where he hides things to keep which would spoil if left in the heat
of his den under the mossy stone, and when food is scarce he draws upon
these cold-storage rooms; but most of his summer snow journeys, if one
may judge from watching him and from following his tracks, are taken for
play or comfort, just as the bull caribou comes up to lie in the snow,
with the strong sea wind in his face, to escape the flies which swarm in
the thickets below.
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