The ravine was deep and dark.  
Its yellow clay slopes, overgrown with red-trunked pines, presented craggy ; at the bottom flowed a . Above, right and left, grew a pine forest—dark, ancient, covered with and shubbery. Overhead was a grey, heavy, low-hanging sky.
 
Man seldom came to this wild and spot.
 
The trees had in the course of time been by storms of wind and rain, and had fallen just where they stood, the earth, rotting, emitting thick odours of decaying pinewood. Thistles, chicory, milfoil, and wormwood had flourished there for years undisturbed, and they now covered the ground with . There was a of bears at the bottom of the ravine; many wolves prowled through the forest.
 
Over the edge of the steep, yellow slope hung a fallen pine, and for many years its roots were exposed, raised on high in the air. They looked like some stretching up its to the elements, and were already covered with lichen and juniper.
 
In the midst of these roots two grea............