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Saranac colony; it is a serious business, seriously undertaken. The outfit is as complete as the exigencies of the country and the climate demand, and the best hours of each day are given up to this flying pursuit of health along the woodland roads or on the surface of the frozen lakes. One leaves no cares behind to steal after and ride with him; one forebodes no unwelcome engagements when the horses are turned homeward. To clear one's mind of care is a Saranac injunction as often and as vigorously repeated by the lips of authority as Dr. Johnson's famous advice about cant. One starts with a free and open mind; "black care is shaken off with the civilization which has done so much to increase its weight and deepen its hue.

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It is a clear, brilliant morning, with a temperature a little below the zero-point. The snow lies fresh and stainless over the fields and woods as one turns into the road to Lake Placid, leaves the little village behind him, and is soon speeding through a solitary world. The heavy, sandy road of bitter memory on hot summer days is now barely definable across the level reaches of snow. Two narrow tracks afford the only evidence that other adventurers have penetrated these remote and silent woods. The sense of isolation is fed by every turn of the road and by every vista through the forest; one feels alone with nature. Cities and the arts of men seem not only remote, but unreal. The road winds along the base of a low hill, whose crown of spruce and pine is dark and green amid the universal monotone of white; it climbs the upland, bare but beautiful now that its unsightly logs and stumps have been transformed by the magic of frost; it runs through an occasional clearing, where the drifts lie so deep that a catastrophe is only avoided by extreme care and skill. On either side there is a succession of winter landscapes, a series of winter incidents, which make one oblivious of time and distance. It is a silent, deserted world, and yet how much goes on within it! The snow, lodged in every crevice, caught by every branch, interrupted by every leaf, has wrought upon the landscape with that unconscious art

which holds the most magical spell of beauty. In all that wilderness there is nothing common or unclean. The unsightly débris of dead trees has now a plastic purity of form and color, and every boulder shows some sculpturesque effect. Through the woods the road almost ceases to be definable; in advance or behind, the trees close up in apparently unbroken ranks, and one wonders whence he came or how he is to find his way out. The long aisles through which one passes noiselessly seem to lead into the very heart of a sanctuary-so silent, so solitary, so profoundly impressive to sense and thought are the snow-covered woods. The great trees, in their vigorous life, are not more beautiful than the dead, which have fallen against them and caught the snow in outspread branches. The trunks that lie prone among their more fortunate fellows have lost all trace of scars and decay; and the under-brush fills in the picture with a free and careless grace of outline and grouping which hints at nature's prodigality of beauty when she turns artist. Above all shines the delicate blue of the wintry sky.

Meanwhile the mountains have come into clear view, and lure one on to their fastnesses. To the east rises the noble mass of Whiteface, to the south the peak of Marcy overtops all its aspiring companions. The White Mountains show no more impressive grouping of hills. The sleigh suddenly leaves the road, descends a steep hill, and glides out onto the smooth surface of Mirror Lake. The ice-cutters are at work, and the blue tint of the great pieces piled about them suggest that last season's reflections of sky have been frost-bound and frozen in with the waters which received them. The lake is an open plain, through which one may take his own course; the snow is so light and dry that the horses pass through it without difficulty, and a light wind obliterates all trace of travel. The circuit of the lake is soon made, and in the meantime the sky is dimmed by a gathering haze which portends snow. A short drive through the woods, by a rough and uncertain road, brings one to Lake Placid, never so beautiful as now when it lies snow-bound among the mountains. To

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day it is a virgin solitude, and following swiftly the lines of its wooded shores, one feels that here the genius of winter is incarnated. The sky has become gray, the lake is a stainless plain, the clustering hills show their green masses touched with snow, while Whiteface rises from the shore, as noble a pile, seen from the surface of the lake, as stars ever rested upon in their long journeying. It is the hour of enthronement, and a few fortunate persons are present at the very moment when winter takes its seat and puts on its crown. A great wreath of snow gathers about the summit of the mountain and slowly descends, expanding as it sinks; the sky becomes more and more indistinct; snowflakes begin to fall, slowly at first, but with increasing rapidity, until the landscape is folded out of sight and the whole world is given up to the silent mystery of the storm.

The Lower Saranac offers a drivingtrack of a unique kind on a clear, cold day, when its surface is an unbroken stretch of snow, and one passes swiftly from island to island over the frozen waters, through which his fragile boat may have carried him under the enchantment of summer skies. I was so fortunate as to make the circuit of this charming lake during a driving storm, when all traces of travel were instantly obliterated, all landmarks concealed, and nothing remained but the whirling snow. The silent fury of the storm, the remoteness and solitude of the scene recalled those studies of winter life and scenery with which the genius of Schreyer has made the world familiar. Another novel experience awaited me when for the first time I left the road and followed the winding course of the Saranac River. The lumber sledges had made a smooth, narrow track on the ice, but not sufficiently marked to make it distinguish able at a distance from the level whiteness of the surface. The river is narrow and full of curves, trees line the shores in many places, and to the east there is a noble background of mountains. One charming bit of scenery gives place to an other in a long succession of winter pictures, touched with a refinement of form and a delicacy of color denied the riper and more affluent beauty of summer. As

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one returns the sun is sinking and the mountains are passing through that magical transformation of light by which their massive outlines are softened and spiritualized. Instead of flat surfaces of dead white, each tree is individualized and stands out in marvellous distinctness, with every branch and leaf outlined in exquisite frost-work. While the light of the western sky falls on those rich masses of frost-tracery a vision of evanescent loveliness passes before one, the flush of the rose slowly fading into the light of the first star.

But there are pleasures afoot in the wintry woods, and one of the most exhilarating is associated with the snowshoe. This ingenious device of the higher latitudes adjusts man to a winter environment which would otherwise narrowly circumscribe his activity. When the snow lies deep along the woodland roads or in the depths of the forest, the pedestrian is practically imprisoned; walking through snow-drifts is a form of exercise from which even the most vigorous shrink. But the snow-shoe, by diffusing one's weight over a larger surface, makes the heaviest snow tributary to a new kind of pleas

ure.

There is no art which is learned with so much personal humiliation as the art of putting the snow-shoe to its normal use; the novice invariably discovers a marvellous inventiveness in turning it to other and more calamitous uses. Once mastered, the snow-shoe puts the whole country into one's possession; road and field, hill and wood offer no obstacles which cannot be overcome. There is, indeed, no other way in which one may really see all there is to be seen, and do all there is to be done. The charm of the winter woods can only be felt when one seeks the very heart of their solitude, and the key of these remote recesses is the snow-shoe. The stimulating air, the consciousness of freedom to scale all heights and to storm the very citadel in which winter has intrenched itself give the man on snow-shoes a feeling of superiority over his fellows which only the noblest natures can bear with equanimity. One comes back from such an exploration of the woods enriched beyond his deserts; he recalls the exquisitely etched branches

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of the tree that stands solitary on some them down he would be accused of rosnowy upland; he recalls the silence of the mountain gorge, the music of whose summer brook still lingers softly cadenced in the ear of memory; he recalls a whole world of impressions so personal, so intimately related to his own imagination, that if he ventured to set

mancing. Add to these out-of-door occupations the excitement of the toboggan slide, when nature acts as architect and constructor; coasting, skating, and walking, and it is evident that time need hang heavy on no man's hands in the Adirondacks during the winter.

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