A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 45 



He had been a hunter and trapper for over forty 

 years ; he had grown gray in the woods, had ripened 

 and matured there, and everything about him was as if 

 the spirit of the woods had had the ordering of it ; his 

 whole make-up was in a minor and subdued key, like 

 the moss and the lichens, or like the protective color- 

 ing of the game, — everything but his quick sense 

 and penetrative glance. He was as gentle and modest 

 as a girl ; his sensibilities were like plants that grow 

 in the shade. The woods and the solitudes had 

 touched him with their own softening and refining 

 influence ; had indeed shed upon his soil of life a 

 rich deep leaf mould that was delightful, and that 

 nursed, half concealed, the tenderest and wildest 

 growths. There was grit enough back of and beneath 

 it all, but he presented none of the rough and repel- 

 ling traits of character of the conventional backwoods- 

 man. In the spring he was a driver of logs on the 

 Kennebec, usually having charge of a large gang of 

 men ; in the winter he was a solitary trapper and 

 hunter in the forests. 



Our first glimpse of Maine waters was Pleasant 

 Pond, which we found by following a white, rapid, 

 musical stream from the Kennebec three miles back 

 into the mountains. Maine waters are for the most 

 part dark-complexioned, Indian-colored streams, but 

 Pleasant Pond is a pale-face among them both in 

 name and nature. It is the only strictly silver lake I 

 ever saw. Its waters seem almost artificially white 

 and brilliant, though of remarkable transparency. I 

 think I detected minute shining motes held in suspen- 

 sion in it. As for the trout they are veritable bars 

 of silver until you have cut their flesh, when they are 

 the reddest of gold. They have no crimson or other 



