NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 125 



The following day, being Sunday, was to be a day of 

 rest, but when I woke in the morning, rather late, 1 

 found that the younger Dewey had set out before dawn 

 for Beaver Pond, where we had cached the collapsible 

 canvas canoe on our journey down. It rained all the 

 day with a depressing persistence, and towards the after- 

 noon a dense mist obscured the country. The rising of 

 this mist caused Walter Dewey some anxiety, as his 

 brother had had practically no experience of the woods, 

 and had only been over the route through which his 

 way lay when he travelled up with us ten days before. 

 When the day closed and darkness came on we all 

 began to share Walter's fears, for it certainly is easy to 

 lose one's way in thick weather, and once lost an 

 individual's life often depends upon his temperament. 



Perhaps foremost among the subjects which are 

 discussed with perennial interest by those who live close 

 to nature is the position of the man who loses himself in 

 an uninhabited tract of country. To be so lost is an 

 experience which most people who have spent any 

 considerable portion of their lives in forests or in 

 wildernesses have at one time or another undergone. 

 The moment at which a man first realises that he is 

 lost is, unluckily, in some cases a moment of panic. In 

 blind haste the unfortunate individual rushes off, 

 generally in the wrong direction, and, driven by his 

 nameless terror, travels over long distances, exhausting 

 himself uselessly. Nine out of ten tragedies of the 

 woods have been the direct result of giving way to this 

 almost uncontrollable impulse ; in many a case some 

 inexperienced hunter or prospector, even though carry- 

 ing a rifle and the other small impedimenta without 

 which no one should ever leave the main camp, has 



