He did not take the line of the straight corduroy road; it was more free and exciting to make a meandering track wherever the snow lay sheer over a chain of frozen pools that intersected the thickets.

There was no perceptible heat in the rays the sun poured down, but the light was so great that where the delicate skeletons of the young trees were massed together it was a relief to let the eye rest upon them.
That same element of pleasure, relief, was found also in the restful deadness of the wooded sides of the hills when he came near them.

Grey there was of deciduous trees in the basin of the river, and dull green of spruce firs that grew up elsewhere.

Intense light has the effect of lack of light, taking colour from the landscape.

Even the green of the fir trees, as they stood in full light on the hill summits, was faded in comparison with the blue beyond.
This was while he was in the open plain; but when he walked into the forest, passing into the gap in the hills, all was changed.