TRAPPER JOE

How strange it all seemed to little Winifred! One
year ago, or, as she reckoned it, one snow-time and one
flower-time ago, she was living in Boston, and now she
was in the wilds of Colorado. It was a great change —
this going from comfort and luxury to a place where com-
fort was hard to find, and luxury not to be thought of;
where they had a log-hut instead of a house, and a pig in
place of a poodle. But, on the whole, she enjoyed it. Her
father was better, and that was what they came for. The
doctor had said Colorado air would cure him. And, though
her young Mother often looked tired and troubled, she
certainly never used to break forth into happy bits of song
when Father was ill in bed, as she did now that he was
able to help cut down trees in the forest. Besides, who
ever saw in Boston such beautiful blue flowers and such
flaming red blossoms? And what was the frog-pond com-
pared with these streams that now, in the springtime,
came rushing through the woods—silently sometimes, and
sometimes go noisily that, if it were not for their sparkle

when they passed the open, sunny places, and the playful
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