It was after four o’clock in the afternoon when he stopped his steady tramp, arrested by the sight of the first living things he had seen—­a flock of birds upon a wild vine that, half snow-covered, hung out the remnant of its frozen berries in a cleft of the hill.  The birds did not fly at his approach, and, going nearer and nearer on the silent snow, he at last stopped, taking in greedily the sight of their pretty, fluttering, life.  They were rather large birds, large as the missel thrush; they had thick curved beaks and were somewhat heavy in form; but the plumage of the males was like the rose-tint of dawn or evening when it falls lightly upon some grey cloud.  They uttered no note, but, busy with their feast, fluttered and hopped with soft sound of wings.

In lieu of gun or net, Trenholme broke a branch from a tree beside him, and climbed nearer to the birds in order to strike one down if possible.  To his surprise, as he advanced deftly with the weapon, the little creatures only looked at him with bright-eyed interest, and made no attempt to save themselves.  The conviction forced itself upon him with a certain awe that these birds had never seen a man before.  His arm dropped beside him; something of that feeling which comes to the explorer when he thinks that he sets his foot where man has never trod came to him now as he leaned against the snow-bank.  The birds, it is true, had fluttered beyond his arm’s length, but they had no thought of leaving their food.  Twice his arm twitched with involuntary impulse to raise the stick and strike the nearest bird, and twice the impulse failed him, till he dropped the stick.

The slight crust which usually forms on snow-banks had broken with the weight of his figure as he leaned against it, and he lay full length against the soft slope, enjoying rest upon so downy a couch, until the birds forgot him, and then he put out his hand and grasped the nearest, hardly more to its own surprise than to his.  The bird feigned dead, as frightened birds will, and when he was cheated into thinking it dead, it got away, and it was only by a very quick movement that he caught it again.  He put it in a hanging pocket of his coat, and waited till he could catch a companion to fill the opposite pocket.

Thus weighted, he continued his journey.  It gave him the cheerful feeling that a boy has when choice marbles are in his pocket.  Neither birds nor marbles under such circumstances have absolute use, but then there is always the pleasant time ahead when it will be suitable to take them out and look at them.  The man did not finger his birds as a boy might have done his marbles, but he did not forget them, and every now and then he lifted the flaps of the, baggy pockets to refill them with air.