298 Trails to Woods and Waters 



" As soon as sap will run, Mr. Yellow- 

 Belly picks out a maple that he knows con- 

 tains sweet sap, and goes up and down the 

 trunk drilling small holes through the bark 

 and into the wood. These holes are slanted 

 down so that when the sap flows they will fill. 

 By the time Mr. Yellow-Belly has drilled his 

 fiftieth hole, the first is full of sap, and all the 

 rogue has to do now is to travel up and down 

 the trunk of the tree drinking out of his sap 

 wells. He will sometimes spend nearly the 

 whole of a warm March day drinking sap. 



" Now we are coming to some queer look- 

 ing country. It is the edge of Great Bear 

 Swamp, but we are not going to penetrate it." 



It was a wild-looking, desolate piece of 

 land, scantily wooded with small willows, 

 birches, both white and yellow, and dotted 

 here and there with a thick clump of spruce. 

 The land was evidently rather moist and was 

 altogether as desolate a spot as I had ever 

 seen. 



" I don't see what we came here for, Ben," 

 I said. " We can't see much here, unless it 



