248 AN OWL? Sg EAD 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 214 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 
2,748 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. 
