II. 



THE NAMELESS CREEK. 



IT was five o'clock in the afternoon when, after 

 three hours of constant struggle with the cur- 

 rent, we burst our way through a mass of alder- 

 bushes and marsh-grass, and behold, the lake lay 

 before us ! Wet from head to foot, panting from 

 my recent exertion, having eaten nothing since 

 seven in the morning, and weary from ten hours' 

 steady toil, I felt neither weariness nor hunger as 

 I gazed upon the scene. Shut in on all sides by 

 mountains, mirrored from base to summit in its 

 placid bosom, bordered here with fresh green 

 grass and there with reaches of golden sand, and 

 again mth patches of lilies, whose fragrance,mingled 

 with the scent of balsam and pine, filled the air, 

 the lake reposed unruffled and serene. 



I know of nothing which carries the mind so far 

 back toward the creative period as to stand on the 

 shore of such a sheet of water, knowing that as you 

 behold it, so has it been for ages. The w^ater 

 which laves your feet is the same as that which 

 flowed when the springs which feed it were first 

 uncapped. No rude axe has smitten the forests 



