Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/327

Rh He ceased his counting. He tilted his head to the talk in the tops above him.

Another sound was manifest; the murmur of the Blueberry, and he moved on, emerging suddenly from the thick forest to the high bank of the river and there he stopped. It ran below him, crystal clear, emerald water over golden sand, swirling into a violet pool at his right. Across the way was a fringe of reeds, freshness itself caught in color and behind them was a stretch of swamp, dead cedar and vivid tamarack against the background of more pine on the high land.

He did not see the canoe beached above him, did not notice the figure just starting into the forest, which stopped dead still behind trees to watch him. For a moment the wind abated and the talk of the trees ran into the faintest breath while across the way a white throated sparrow broke into his sweet, sweet song, as clear as the waters of the river themselves.

"O-o-o-oh, dear, dear, d-d-dear, d-d-dear, dear—"

Again his hand went out to the trunk of a tree, fingers gripping the bark this time with the tensity of a strange emotion. His face lifted to the clean sky and his heart opened to the song of the bird.

"O-o-o-oh, dear, dear, d-d-dear, d-d-dear, dear—"

He looked up at the crowns above him, the whispering tops of the pine trees; he turned to see the ranks of trees through which he had come, the trees he had counted. Something broke within him and light went from his eyes. Board feet! Always, he had looked at forests in the terms of board feet; today it was something else. There was more to this stand of baby pine than lumber, more than wealth.