ijO BIRCH BROWSINGS. 



we were with a hundred and one superfluities which 

 we had foolishly brought along to solace ourselves 

 with in the woods ; nor that halt on the summit, where 

 we cooked and ate our fish in a drizzling rain ; nor, 

 again, that rude log-house, with its sweet hospitality, 

 which we reached just at nightfall on Mill Brook. 



In 1868, a party of three of us set out for a brief 

 trouting excursion, to a body of water called Thomas's 

 Lake, situated in the same chain of mountains. On 

 this excursion, more particularly than on any other I 

 have ever undertaken, I was taught how poor an Indian 

 I should make, and what a ridiculous figure a party 

 of men may cut in the woods when the way is uncer- 

 tain and the mountains high. 



We left our team at a farm-house near the head of 

 the Mill Brook, one June afternoon, and with knap- 

 sacks on our shoulders struck into the woods at the 

 base of the mountain, hoping to cross the range that 

 intervened between us and the lake by sunset. We 

 engaged a good-natured, but rather indolent young 

 man, who happened to be stopping at the house, and 

 who had carried a knapsack in the Union armies, to 

 pilot us a couple of miles into the woods so as to guard 

 against any mistakes at the outset. It seemed the 

 easiest thing in the world to find the lake. The lay 

 of the land was so simple, according to accounts, that 

 I felt sure I could go to it in the dark. " Go up this 

 little brook to its source on the side of the mountain," 

 they said. " The valley that contains the lake heads 



