130 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



ground badly rotted and decayed. Beyond this yard 

 was a small ravine, and beyond that another logging 

 yard. 



I decided that the ravine should be followed until it 

 came to water, and then I thought I could easily find 

 out where I was. Following this ravine a few minutes, 

 I found a little brook, which persistently seemed to 

 disappear into some subterranean channel in about 

 every fifty feet of distance traveled. 



This was very puzzling, because the ravine gradually 

 widened out to the width of quite a respectable valley, 

 and it was a hard matter to keep track of the brook's 

 many disappearances. 



At one place the stream came to the surface and for 

 a hundred feet it widened to such a width that I could 

 not jump across it. Green grass, lush and lusty, grew 

 on each side of it. Beyond the grass came a fringe of 

 alders, and beyond the alders many young maple trees, 

 and behold ! there were some moose tracks, fresh as 

 they could be ! 



Here a moose had stepped over a log after wading 

 through the brook and the mud from its feet was yet 

 slipping down from the log. The water was muddy, 

 too, showing where the moose had waded through it. 

 And did I not see how the top branches were eaten off 

 a small maple tree ? 



I wasn't through making a mental inventory of the 

 signs which plainly showed that here at last were sure 



