84 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



shoulders groan under the burden of his light canoe. 

 I saw him looking at a handful of specimens of birch 

 bark he had collected, and was balancing which to 

 choose as material for a new boat. He still looks 

 forward to years of hunting and days of toil, when 

 the barque of life is already touching those dark 

 waters that roll away from this world and all that it 

 contains. 



After spending a night with Mitchell, we bade him 

 good-by, and started for the Adirondac Mountains, 

 where it was necessary to have another guide. He 

 rowed us across the lake, and accompanied us several 

 miles on our way, as if loth to leave us. I gave him 

 a canister of powder, a pocket compass, and a small 

 spy-glass, to keep as mementos of me, and shook his 

 honest hand with as much regret as I ever did that 

 of a white man. I shall long remember him. He is a 

 man of deeds and not of words — kind, gentle, delicate 

 in his feelings, honest and true as steel. I would 

 start on a journey of a thousand miles in the woods 

 with him alone, without the slightest anxiety, although 

 I was burdened down with money. I never lay down 

 beside a trustier heart than his, and never slept 

 sounder than I have with one arm thrown across his 

 brawny chest. 



We had started in the morning for a clearing be- 

 tween twenty and thirty miles distant, but after we 

 had performed fourteen miles of it, and found our- 

 selves beneath the roof of a comfortable log-house, we 

 concluded to stay over night. The next morning, 

 bright and early, we resumed our march, and at noon 



