FOREST, LAKE, AND RIVER 



On the other side of the world we 're overdue ! 

 See the road is clear before you when the 

 Old Spring fret comes o'er you, 

 And the Red Gods call for you. 



With the ring and the rhythm of these words 

 my heart turns towards the head waters of the 

 Kennebec, as they flow with a rush and a roar 

 through the gates of the dam at old Moosehead. 



For ten years, I have stepped from the Cana- 

 dian Pacific train, and gazed with delight upon the 

 great lake lying in its beauty, one thousand feet 

 above the level of the sea, and buttressed in the dis- 

 tance by Katadin, whose crest, one mile nearer 

 heaven than the lake itself, looks calmly down on 

 Moosehead. As I draw nearer the hotel on the lake 

 shore that for so many years has sheltered so many 

 enthusiasts in the pursuit of big trout, I hear a 

 murmur, ever growing louder. It is the music of 

 the great stream, — a stream bordered on either side 

 by forest primeval, and by a woodland road for five 

 miles southward, to the Indian Pond. 



In a few minutes from the hostelry, one finds 

 himself on the delightsome pathway, amid a soli- 

 tude, — the great trees arching overhead, and here 

 and there footpaths through the woods to the 

 river and its pools. Once seen, that river with its 

 ever-varying vistas of beauty, with its rounding 



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