A WINDFALL. 373 



locks that had evidently been blasted with lightning, 

 while the multitudinous huge trunks that lay piled 

 across each other in every imaginable shape, showed 

 that a tornado had at some previous period swept 

 it, leaving only here and there a withered tree 

 standing to be the sport of the lightning. No choice 

 being left us, we steered our boats towards this deso- 

 late spot. It was with difficulty that we could scrape 

 away a space big enough for our tent between the 

 fallen timber and the shore. You can have no idea 

 what a wind-fall is, as woodsmen call it, until you see 

 this spot. You could not go three rods back from 

 the shore, and not a single yard of that distance would 

 your feet touch the ground. You could not move at 

 all, except by crawling along and over and under logs, 

 that in some places lay piled five feet high, just as the 

 hurricane had left them. 



"While we were getting dinner, one of the guides saw 

 a deer a little way off feeding on the marshy shore, so 



F stepped into a boat with John, and in a few minutes 



we heard the crack of a rifle. As the boat returned we 

 saw the carcass of a deer stretched on the bottom. We 

 were now sure at least of fresh venison, which was a 

 relief after a diet of hard salt pork. Yours truly. 



