50 RIVERBY 



possessed themselves of the points, they rolled up 

 their blankets about nine o'clock, and were off, my 

 friend and myself purposing to spend yet another 

 day and night on Slide. As our friends plunged 

 down into that fearful abyss, we shouted to them the 

 old classic caution, " Be bold, be bold, be not too 

 bold. " It required courage to make such a leap into 

 the unknown, as I knew those young men were mak- 

 ing, and it required prudence. A faint heart or a 

 bewildered head, and serious consequences might 

 have resulted. The theory of a thing is so much 

 easier than the practice ! The theory is in the air, 

 the practice is in the woods; the eye, the thought, 

 travel easily where the foot halts and stumbles. 

 However, our friends made the theory and the fact 

 coincide; they kept the dividing line between the 

 spruce and the birches, and passed over the ridge 

 into the valley safely ; but they were torn and bruised 

 and wet by the showers, and made the last few miles 

 of their journey on will and pluck alone, their last 

 pound of positive strength having been exhausted in 

 making the descent through the chaos of rocks and 

 logs into the head of the valley. In such emergen- 

 cies one overdraws his account; he travels on the 

 credit of the strength he expects to gain when he 

 gets his dinner and some sleep. Unless one has 

 made such a trip himself (and I have several times 

 in my life), he can form but a faint idea what it is 

 like, what a trial it is to the body, and what a trial 

 it is to the mind. You are fighting a battle with 

 an enemy in ambush. How those miles and leagues 



