81 TOPPER'S T.ATTR. 



Let it go where labor will garner a richer harvest, and 

 industry reap a better reward for its toil. It will be of 

 stinted growth at best here. 



" I like these old woods," said a gentleman, whom I met 

 on the Rackett last year ; " I like them, because one can do 

 here just what he pleases. He can wear a shirt a week, 

 have holes in his pantaloons, and be out at elbows, go with 

 his boots unblacked, drink whisky in the raw, chew plug 

 tobacco, and smoke a black pipe, and not lose his position 

 in society. Now," continued he, " tho' I don't choose to do 

 any of these things, yet I love the freedom, now and then, 

 of doing just all of them if I choose, without human 

 accountability. The truth is, that it is natural as well 

 as necessary for every man to be a vagabond occasionally, to 

 throw off the restraints imposed upon him by the necessities 

 and conventionalities of civilization, and turn savage for a 

 season, and what place is left for such transformation, save 

 these northern forests ?" 



The idea was somewhat quaint, but to me it smacked 

 of philosophy, and I yielded it a hearty assent. I would 

 consecrate these old forests, these rivers and lakes, these 

 mountains and valleys to the Vagabond Spirit, and make 

 them a plaqe wherein a man could turn savage and rest, for 

 a fortnight or a month, from the toils and cares of life. 



We entered TOPPER'S LAKE towards six o'clock, and saw 

 our white tents pitched upon the left bank, some half a mile 

 above the outlet, where a little stream, cold almost as 

 jcewater, comes down from a spring a short way back in the 



