56 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



then, the solitude itself is an excellent com- 

 panionship. We are having a pretty good 

 time of it, I think, the trees, the brook, 

 the winding road, the yellow birch leaves, 

 and the human pilgrim, who feels himself 

 one with them all. I hope they would not 

 disown a poor relation. 



It is ten o'clock. Slowly as I have come, 

 not a wagonload of tourists has caught up 

 with me ; and at the Bald Mountain path I 

 leave the highway, having a sudden notion 

 to go to Echo Lake by the way of Artist's 

 Bluff, so called, a rocky cliff that rises 

 abruptly from the lower end of the lake. 

 The trail conducts me through a veritable 

 fernery, one long slope being thickly set 

 with perfectly fresh shield-ferns, Aspi- 

 dium spinulosum and perhaps A. dilatatum, 

 though I do not concern myself to be sure of 

 it. From the bluff the lake is at my feet, 

 but what mostly fills my eye is the woods on 

 the lower side of Mount Cannon. There is 

 no language to express the kind of pleasure 

 I take in them : so soft, so bright, so various 

 in their hues, dark green, light green, 

 russet, yellow, red, all drowned in sun- 



