A BED OF BOUGHS. 191 



eyes are large and fine, and its form slender. It 

 looks like only a far-off undegenerate cousin of the 

 filthy creature that has come to us from the long- 

 peopled Old World. Some creature ran between my 

 feet and the fire toward morning, the last night we 

 slept in the woods, and I have little doubt it was one 

 of these wood-rats. 



The people in these back settlements are almost as 

 shy and furtive as the animals. Even the men look 

 a little scared when you stop them by your questions. 

 The children dart behind their parents when you 

 look at them. As we sat on a bridge, resting, for 

 our packs still weighed fifteen or twenty pounds each, 

 two women passed us with pails on their arms, 

 going for blackberries. They filed by with their eyes 

 down like two abashed nuns. 



In due time we found an old road, to which we 

 had been directed, that led over the mountain to the 

 West Branch. It was a hard pull, sweetened by 

 blackberries and a fine prospect. The snow-bird was 

 common along the way, and a solitary wild pigeon 

 shot through the woods in front of us, recalling the 

 nests we had seen on the East Branch little scaf- 

 foldings of twigs scattered all through the trees. 



It was nearly noon when we struck the West 

 Branch and the sun was scalding hot. We knew that 

 two and three pound trout had been taken there, and 

 yet we wet not a line in its waters. The scene was 

 primitive, and carried one back to the days of his 

 grandfather, stumpy fields, log-fences, log-houses and 



