58 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



find a stray phalarope swimming in the lake. 

 That would be a sight worth seeing. The 

 lake itself is always here, at any rate, espe- 

 cially now that the summer people are gone ; 

 and if the wind is right and the sun out, so 

 that a man can sit still with comfort (to-day 

 my coat is superfluous), the absence of other 

 things does not greatly matter. 



This clean waterside must have many 

 four-footed visitors, particularly in the twi- 

 light and after dark. Deer and bears are 

 common inhabitants of the mountain woods ; 

 but for my eyes there is nothing but squir- 

 rels, with once in a long while a piece of 

 wilder game. Twice only, in Franconia, 

 have I come within sight of a fox. Once I 

 was alone, in the wood-road to Sinclair's 

 Mills. I rounded a curve, and there the 

 fellow stood in the middle of the way, smell- 

 ing at something in the rut. After a bit 

 (my glass had covered him instantly) he 

 raised his head and looked down the road 

 in a direction opposite to mine. Then he 

 turned, saw me, started slightly, stood quite 

 still for a fraction of a minute (I wondered 

 why), and vanished in the woods, his white 



