408 THE ADIRONDACK. 



distinct in the gathering darkness. The guides bent to 

 their oars with a will, and we swept silently forward. 

 At the west, shore and mountain were soon lost in the 

 overhanging blackness, but at the east the sickly sky 

 was still streaked with the dying light. I had just 

 wrapped my overcoat about me, when there came a 

 flash of lightning that for a moment blinded me, and 

 before it had fairly passed, there fell a thunder-clap so 

 sudden and awful that the boats seemed to stop and 

 shiver before it. The storm was now upon us, and in a 

 few minutes after, darkness fell on everything. We 

 could not see each other's boats, except as the lightning 

 revealed them, nor should we have known which way 

 to steer except for the incessant flashes that would light 

 up for an instant that far-off clearing on the breast of 

 the mountain, with its solitary log-hut, and then leave 

 it engulfed in the blackness. A moment, every stump 

 and dead tree would stand out more distinct and clear 

 than at noonday, and then we wo aid be left alone with 

 our voices in the all-surrounding darkness. The thun- 

 der was frightful, and as it ever and anon broke from 

 the heavens down upon the lake, I bent to it as to a 

 blow. The rain fell in one great cataract, and the wind, 

 howling along the bosom of the lake, sent the waves 



