A DANGEROUS TEIP. 69 



species, slightly changed by climate and different habits of 

 life, resulting from the dissimilar localities in which they 

 are found. 



A blazed path was all we had for direction, but as 

 both were in the full vigour of manhood, we steadily 

 progressed. Several times we flushed the Canadian spruce 

 grouse, but as my projectiles were not suited to this stamp 

 of game, and my companion continually kept reminding me 

 that larger might be expected, I forbore troubling them. 



From the swamp we got on drier soil, very rocky, and 

 densely wooded with pine, the trees increasing in stature as 

 we ascended, till we were surrounded with such glorious 

 pines as might one day form, without discredit, the main- 

 mast of a line-of-battle ship. 



Upwards, like the youth who shouted " Excelsior," we 

 kept ascending, but we had not the maiden to warn us, 

 whose warning I doubt not, unless she had been unusually 

 pretty, would have been disregarded. Soon the walking 

 became climbing, and after an hour's clambering the 

 summit of the ridge was reached. Here the first trap wus 

 lifted, and at intervals of two hundred yards or so, 

 according to the nature of the ground, the others were 

 found distributed As they had been down for nearly two 

 months, whatever had been captured by them was now in 

 a decomposed state. Soon the whole (over a dozen) had 

 been gathered, when we descended to a stream literally 

 alive with fish ; trout of all sizes up to a pound appeared 

 to be actually crowding each other, and so unacquainted 

 were they with man's presence that they totally disregarded 

 our intrusion. 



