THE ADIRONDACKS 73 



counted for its warmth to the hand, which surprised 

 us all. 



Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A 

 pigeon hawk came prowling by our camp, and the 

 faint piping call of the nuthatches, leading their 

 young through the high trees, was often heard. 



On the third day our guide proposed to conduct 

 us to a lake in the mountains where we could float 

 for deer. 



Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged 

 ascent, which brought us, after an hour's heavy 

 climbing, to an elevated region of pine forest, years 

 before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all 

 manner of obstacles to our awkward and incum- 

 bered pedestrianism. The woods were largely pine, 

 though yellow birch, beech, and maple were com- 

 mon. The satisfaction of having a gun, should any 

 game show itself, was the chief compensation to 

 those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge 

 would occasionally whir up before us, or a red 

 squirrel snicker and hasten to his den; else the 

 woods appeared quite tenantless. The most noted 

 object was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of 

 a great race, which presided over a cluster of yel- 

 low birches, on the side of the mountain. 



About noon we came out upon a long, shallow 

 sheet of water which the guide called Bloody-Moose 

 Pond, from the tradition that a moose had been 

 slaughtered there many years before. Looking out 

 over the silent and lonely scene, his eye was the 

 first to detect an object, apparently feeding upon lily- 



