BIRCH BROWSINGS 169 



At an early hour we reached the rock where we 

 had parted with the guide, and looked around us 

 into the dense, trackless woods with many misgiv- 

 ings. To strike out now on our own hook, where 

 the way was so blind and after the experience we 

 had just had, was a step not to be carelessly taken. 

 The tops of these mountains are so broad, and a 

 short distance in the woods seems so far, that one 

 is by no means master of the situation after reach- 

 ing the summit. And then there are so many spurs 

 and offshoots and changes of direction, added to the 

 impossibility of making any generalization by the 

 aid of the eye, that before one is aware of it he is 

 very wide of his mark. 



I remembered now that a young farmer of my 

 acquaintance had told me how he had made a long 

 day's march through the heart of this region, with- 

 out path or guide of any kind, and had hit his 

 mark squarely. He had been barkpeeling in Cal- 

 likoon, — a famous country for bark, — and, having 

 got enough of it, he desired to reach his home on 

 Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous jour- 

 ney between the two places. To do this necessi- 

 tated a march of ten or twelve miles across several 

 ranges of mountains and through an unbroken for- 

 est, — a hazardous undertaking in which no one 

 would join him. Even the old hunters who were 

 familiar with the ground dissuaded him and pre- 

 dicted the failure of his enterprise. But having 

 made up his mind, he possessed himself thoroughly 

 of the topography of the country from the aforesaid 



