248 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 



ness. After making the climb four times in 

 the course of eight days, I am not disposed to 

 abate so much as a jot from the official figures. 

 Rather than do that I would pin my faith to 

 an unprofessional-looking sign-board in the rear 

 of the hotel, on which the legend runs, " Sum- 

 mit of Owl's Head 2 J miles." For aught I 

 know, indeed (in such a world as this, uncer- 

 tainty is a principal mark of intelligence), — 

 for aught I know, both measurements may be 

 correct ; which fact, if once it were established, 

 would easily and naturally explain how it came 

 to pass that I myself found the distance so 

 much greater on some days than on others ; al- 

 though, for that matter, which of the two would 

 be actually longer, a path which should rise 

 2,743 feet in a mile and a half, or one that 

 should cover two miles and a quarter in reach- 

 ing the same elevation, is a question to which 

 different pedestrians would likely enough re- 

 turn contradictory answers.^ 



Yet let me not be thought to magnify so 

 small a feat as the ascent of Owl's Head, a 

 mountain which the ladies of the Appalachian 

 Club may be presumed to look upon as hardly 

 better than a hillock. The guide-book's " thirty 



1 The guide-book allows two hours for the mile and a half on 

 Owl's Head, while it gives only an hour and a half for the three 

 miles up Mount Clinton — from the Crawford House. 



