“It isn’t that,” said Bob; “but I want to get some air to-day.  I’m not used to being in an office.  I want to steal a hunk of bread, and a few of your good doughnuts and a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch.”

“A cup of hot coffee would do you more good,” objected Mrs. Hallowell.

“Please,” begged Bob, “and I won’t disturb a thing.”

“Oh, land!  Don’t worry about that,” said Mrs. Hallowell, “there’s teamsters and such in here all times of the day and night.  Help yourself.”

Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman’s canvas lunch bag, was walking rapidly up the River Trail.  He did not know whither he was bound; but here at last was a travelled way.  It was a brilliant blue and gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm.  The trail led him first across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises, green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow.  Then came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable tangle—­oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack—­and through it all an abattis of old slashing—­with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees.  Along one of these strutted a partridge.  It clucked at Bob, but refused to move faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail.  The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses.  The poles were old and slippery, and none too large.  Bob had to walk circumspectly to stay on them at all.  Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher country of the hardwoods.  Here the spring had passed, scattering her fresh green.  The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from above.  Last year’s leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet.  Through it pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica.  Grackles whistled clearly.  Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude.  Bluebirds warbled on the wing.  The busier chickadees and creepers searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks.  The sun slanted through the forest.

Bob strode on vigorously.  His consciousness received these things gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its components.  At one point, however, he paused.  The hardwoods had risen over a low hill.  Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river, distant and below.  In contrast to the modulated browns of the tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel.  Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses.  Again, the river was clear.  While Bob watched, a man floated into view.  He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the water lapped over its top.  From this distance Bob could but just make it out.  The man leaned carelessly on his peavy.  Across the vista he floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to the mill.