170 NARRATIVES. 



The sensation, to one who has never before had a load on 

 his shoulders, of a pack of forty pounds' weiglit placed thereon, 

 is any thing but comfortable ; and still less so was the prospect 

 of carrying such a burden over the long and difficult path 

 which lay before us. But circumstances were inexorable : 

 the cross must be borne, and bear it I did, as the sequel will 

 show. By dint of occasionally shifting my load from one 

 point to another on my back, I traversed the first two or three 

 miles quite comfortably. I even began to be jubilant over my 

 supposed capacity as a beast of burden. How great, thought 



I, will be the shame and confusion of W and T and 



H (who had striven to cast discredit on my backwoods- 



manship), when I relate to them, in full conclave, my tri- 

 umphant exodus from the wilderness ! What, after all, was 

 there in the crossing of the Alps by Napoleon or Hannibal ; 

 the passage of the Splugen by Macdonald, or the Rocky 

 Mountains by Fremont ; the scaling of the Heights of Abra- 

 ham by Wolfe ; the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; or any 

 of those achievements about which history makes such an 

 ado — Avhat is there in all these that evinces a greater su- 

 premacy of mind over matter, than this march of mine from 

 solitude to civilization with forty pounds of salmon-trout on 

 my back ? The greatest deeds are not those which Fame 

 trumpets to posterity. " Full many a flower is born to blush 

 unseen," &c. 



But alas for poor, fallible human nature ! The spirit indeed 

 was willing, but the flesh seemed likely to prove a failure. At 

 the close of the fifth mile, I felt desperately tired and uncom- 

 fortable. Sombre thoughts began to creep over me. What 

 if, after all, my enterprise should not prove a triumph ? What 

 if it should result in an ignominious defeat ? What if dark- 

 ness should overtake me, and I should be left exhausted in 

 the forest, a prey to wild beasts ? What if the next traveller 

 should find my bones by the way-side, picked clean by remorse- 

 less wolves? And, as if to give force to the suggestion, 

 Newhouse, who was a short distance in the rear, shouted, 

 " A wolf! a wolf! " My sporting instincts at once prevailed 

 over my fatigue ; and, cocking my rifle, I rushed into the 



