A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH 109 



White saw and describes in his letters was picked 

 up in a field, unable to launch itself into the air. 



From Pleasant Pond we went seven miles through 

 the woods to Moxie Lake, following an overgrown 

 lumberman's "tote" road, our canoe and supplies, 

 etc., hauled on a sled by the young farmer with 

 his three-year-old steers. I doubt if birch-bark 

 ever made a rougher voyage than that. As I 

 watched it above the bushes, the sled and the 

 luggage being hidden, it appeared as if tossed in 

 the wildest and most tempestuous sea. When the 

 bushes closed above it, I felt as if it had gone 

 down, or been broken into a hundred pieces. Bil- 

 lows of rocks and logs, and chasms of creeks and 

 spring runs, kept it rearing and pitching in the 

 most frightful manner. The steers went at a spank- 

 ing pace; indeed, it was a regular bovine gale; but 

 their driver clung to their side amid the brush and 

 bowlders with desperate tenacity, and seemed to 

 manage them by signs and nudges, for he hardly ut- 

 tered his orders aloud. But we got through with- 

 out any serious mishap, passing Mosquito Creek 

 and Mosquito Pond, and flanking Mosquito Moun- 

 tain, but seeing no mosquitoes, and brought up at 

 dusk at a lumberman's old hay-barn, standing in 

 the midst of a lonely clearing on the shores of 

 Moxie Lake. 



Here we passed the night, and were lucky in 

 having a good roof over our heads, for it rained 

 heavily. After we were rolled in our blankets and 

 variously disposed upon the haymow, Uncle Nathan 



