ili ious

118 MOUNTAINS

the trees. We rowed over with the harness and
packs, and moored the boat again on the beach.

Between the beach and the tall forest there was
a clearing where raspberries grew among the grass.
It was fringed with trees that screened it from the
river, and in the centre of it a huge old spruce
stretched protective branches over a level carpet of
brown needles. Here we built our fire, and when the
tents were pitched and the boxes and bags carried
up from the beach we spread our supper on the
spruce needles while the threatening sky grew
darker overhead. Rain came down on tents and
grass as the night closed in, but under our tree pale
bannocks rose and grew brown in the frying-pans,
and the fire cast flickering lights and shadows on the
brown carpet and the four faces and the dark, dry
branches overhead.