WOODLAND PATHS 



cliff-dwellers, the many- footed rock lovers 

 finding foothold where you would hardly 

 think the lichens even would survive. 



I never tramp these roads, which it 

 sometimes seems as if the pukwudgies 

 moved about in the night for the confu- 

 sion of men, without being lost, at least 

 for a time, and finding a new boulder to 

 worship. Once, thus lost, I found a little 

 gem of a pond, which hides in the hol- 

 lows a half-mile or so east from Ponka- 

 pog Pond. This, too, I fear the puk- 

 wudgies move about in the night, for I 

 hear of many men who have found it 

 once and sought it again in vain. 



To-day I came upon it once more, a 

 cup of clear water in the hollow of the 

 forest's hand, smiling up at the sky with 

 neither inlet or outlet. The black ducks 

 had found it, too. They greeted my ap- 

 proaching footsteps with quacks of alarm, 

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