June was the month chosen, since in the region of the St. Vrain that is the rainiest part of the year. After thoroughly exploring the ground I concluded to go down the river a few miles and make headquarters in a new sawmill. There I spent delightful days in gathering information concerning tree-growth and in making biographical studies of several veteran logs, as the saw ripped open and revealed their life-scrolls. One morning I was awakened by the pelting and thumping of large, widely scattered raindrops on the roof of the mill. Tree stories were forgotten, and I rushed outdoors. The sky was filled with the structureless gloom of storm-cloud, and the heavy, calm air suggested rain. "We'll get a wetting such as you read of, to-day!" declared the sawmill foreman, as I made haste to start for the wilds. I plunged into the woods and went eagerly up the dim, steep mountain trail which kept close company with the river St. Vrain. Any doubts concerning the strength of the storm were quickly washed away. My dry-weather clothes were swiftly soaked, but with notebook safe under my hat, I hastened to gain the "forks" as soon as possible, enjoying the general downpour and the softened noise that it made through the woods. I had often been out in rains on the Rockies, but this one was wetting the earth with less effort than any I had ever experienced. For half an hour no air stirred; then, while crossing a small irregular opening in the woods, I was caught in a storm-centre of wrangling winds and waters, and now and then their weight would almost knock me over, until, like a sapling, I bowed, streaming, in the storm. The air was full of "water-dust," and, once across the open, I made haste to hug a tree, hoping to find a breath of air that was not saturated to strangulation. Neither bird nor beast had been seen, nor did I expect to come upon any, unless by chance my movements drove one from its refuge; but while I sat on a sodden log, reveling in elemental moods and sounds, a water-ouzel came flying along. He alighted on a boulder which the on-sweeping stream at my feet seemed determined to drown or dislodge, and, making his usual courtesies, he began to sing. His melody is penetrating; but so sustained was the combined roar of the stream and the storm that there came to me only a few notes of his energetic nesting-time song. His expressive attitudes and gestures were so harmoniously united with these, however, that I could not help feeling that he was singing with all his might to the water, the woods, and me. Keeping close to the stream, I continued my climb. My ear now caught the feeble note of a robin, who was making discouraged and disconsolate efforts at song, and it seemed to issue from a throat clogged with wet cotton. Plainly the world was not beautiful to him, and the attempt at music was made to kill time or cheer himself up.