The willows and aspens had long since budded, and were now decking themselves in liveries of fresh young green, and the sap was rising in the pines.
Mother nature had heaved her waking sigh and gone about her brief business.

Crickets sang of nights in the stilly cabins, and in the sunshine mosquitoes crept from out hollow logs and snug crevices among the rocks,--big, noisy, harmless fellows, that had procreated the year gone, lain frozen through the winter, and were now rejuvenated to buzz through swift senility to second death.

All sorts of creeping, crawling, fluttering life came forth from the warming earth and hastened to mature, reproduce, and cease.

Just a breath of balmy air, and then the long cold frost again--ah! they knew it well and lost no time.

Sand martins were driving their ancient tunnels into the soft clay banks, and robins singing on the spruce-garbed islands.