A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 121 



the woods to Moxie Lake, following an overgrown 

 lumberman's " tote " road, our canoe and supplies, 

 etc., hauled on a sled by the young farmer with his 

 three-year-old steers. I doubt if birch-bavk ever 

 made a rougher voyage than that. As I watched it 

 above the bushes, the sled and the lugagge being hid- 

 den, it appeared as if tossed in the wildest and most 

 tempestuous sea. When the bushes closed above it I 

 felt as if it had gone down, or been broken into a hun- 

 dred pieces. Billows of rocks and logs, and chasms 

 of creeks and spring runs, kept it rearing and pitch- 

 ing in the most frightful manner. The steers went at 

 a spanking pace ; indeed, it was a regular bovine 

 gale ; but their driver clung to their side amid the 

 brush and bowlders with desperate tenacity, and 

 seemed to manage them by signs and nudges, for he 

 hardly uttered his orders aloud. But we got through 

 without any serious mishap, passing Mosquito Creek 

 and Mosquito Pond, and flanking Mosquito Moun- 

 tain, but seeing no mosquitoes, and brought up at 

 dusk at a lumberman's old hay-barn, standing in the 

 'midst of a lonely clearing on the shores of Moxie 

 Lake. 



Here we passed the night, and were lucky in hav- 

 ing a good roof over our heads, for it rained heavily. 

 After we were rolled in our blankets and variously 

 disposed upon the haymow, Uncle Nathan lulled us to 

 sleep by a long and characteristic yarn. 



I had asked him, half jocosely, if he believed in 

 " spooks ; " but he took my question seriously, and 



