Near a stream I came upon a patch of the rare climbing fern, an evergreen fern which climbs like a vine and has flat, veined leaves that look like little green hands with four and five fingers. The stem is like drawn copper wire. Beyond the fern I met the pale-gray poison sumac, with its corpse-colored berries growing out from the sides of the twigs instead of from the end, as do the berries of the harmless varieties. I followed Pond-Lily Path through the white sand that in the springtime is all golden with barrens-heather. It winds in and out through the scattered clumps of low pitch pine and thickets of scrub oak, and finally leads to a still brook all afloat in midsummer with pond lilies. When the path reached the bogs, which to-day were frozen solid, I turned in, crossing them on the snow-covered ice. Everywhere were lines of four-toed crow tracks, and here and there were rabbit trails, a series of four round holes in the snow. The next morning, when I followed my own tracks, I found that for more than a mile I had been trailed by some animal making a series of little paw-prints like those of a small cat, except that they were close together and sometimes doubled, showing where the animal had given sudden bounds. It was none other than the trail of a weasel, probably the long-tailed variety, although that is rare in the barrens. Like others of his family, this animal oftens follows a man's tracks for a long distance, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps in the hope of finding food. As I looked at the trail of this little killer, I was glad that he was not larger. If weasels, or those other killers, the shrews, were as large as a dog, no man's life would be safe out of doors. I explored so far that the sun had set before I turned back for the cabin. Suddenly, from far over where the tree-trunks were inked black against the golden afterglow, I heard a hoot, deep rather than loud. "_Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo!_" it went, and sometimes, "_Hoo-hoo-hoo!_" Usually, though, the second note was doubled. It meant that the great horned owl with its speckled gray back and white collar was hunting rabbits through the silent woods. If it had been the barred owl, the third note would have been doubled and the last note would have had a drop in its cadence. In the frosty twilight I hurried along the winding path, back to the cabin and a long, dreamy evening before the roaring fire. First came a wonderful exhibition of free-hand cooking. Then I piled the great fireplace well up the chimney with masses of pitch-pine knots and stumps that I had dug up in the dry bogs. All of the sapwood had decayed, leaving nothing except the resinous bones of the fallen trees. They burned at the touch of a match, with a red smoky flame. Above them I banked dry lengths of swamp maple and post oak. Then, drawing up a vast rocker well within the circle of the heat, I settled down to read and dream in front of the red coals. [Illustration: THE LONG-TAILED WEASEL]