Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/231

 Though humbled by this “plain talk to plain people,” I had my own reasons for clinging to my “pole,” and so I clung. I find, however, that I carry it less like a flagstaff, and note a growing tendency to trail it.

The walks here are all so interesting that we often have difficulty in deciding which to take. We sometimes leave it to the dogs. If they scamper away across the sodden, spongy meadow, we know they are bound for the canyon, and we cheerfully follow.

Near the stream we enter a narrow, winding path, padded with brown wet leaves, bordered by willow, maple, ash, and alder trees; while crowding among these grow smaller trees,—wild cherry, Indian peach, chittam vine bark and hazel, with elder, wild syringa, currant, and blackberry bushes; the wild rose, too, with an infinite variety of other shrubs that love to haunt the banks of Deer Leap.

This difficult path is made even more difficult in places by curving boughs of vine maple and the palm-like branches of young firs. We must needs advance crouchingly here, hoisting the green, sagging roof above our heads, learning through its showery protests that sagging is not its only defect.

Soon after escaping from this troublesome tangle, we enter the dusky atmosphere of the big trees. This canyon, Nell, is a wild and eerie region, a veritable “ghoul-haunted woodland of wier,” just the place for