BIRCH BROWSINGS 177 



rested a while, and partaken sparingly of the bread 

 and whiskey, which in such an emergency is a great 

 improvement on bread and water, I agreed to their 

 proposition that we should make another attempt. 

 As if to reassure us, a robin sounded his cheery call 

 near by, and the winter wren, the first I had heard 

 in these woods, set his music-box going, which 

 fairly ran over with fine, gushing, lyrical sounds. 

 There can be no doubt but this bird is one of our 

 finest songsters. If it would only thrive and sing 

 well when caged, like the canary, how far it would 

 surpass that bird! It has all the vivacity and ver- 

 satility of the canary, without any of its shrillness. 

 Its song is indeed a little cascade of melody. 



We again .retraced our steps, rolling the stone, as 

 it were, back up the mountain, determined to com- 

 mit ourselves to the line of marked trees. These 

 we finally reached, and, after exploring the country 

 to the right, saw that bearing to the left was still 

 the order. The trail led up over a gentle rise of 

 ground, and in less than twenty minutes we were 

 in the woods I had passed through when I found 

 the lake. The error I had made was then plain; 

 we had come off the mountain a few paces too far 

 to the right, and so had passed down on the wrong 

 side of the ridge, into what we afterwards learned 

 was the valley of Alder Creek. 



We now made good time, and before many minutes 

 I again saw the mimic sky glance through the trees. 

 As we approached the lake a solitary woodchuck, 

 the first wild animal we had seen since entering the 



