8o6 



Camps and Tramps About Ktaadn. 



THE MISSING LINK. 



every size. Where disintegrated stone and vegetable mold have 

 accumulated for ages, the road is practicable for wagons ; but on 

 slopes, where the filling has washed out, it is amazing to see a horse 

 get over it at all, especially when he has to drag soft wooden sled- 

 runners over the serrated edges of big stones. 



The rest of the road presented still steeper pitches, deeper bogs, 

 and more entanglingly strewn rocks. One of our horses, a strag- 

 gling, raw-boned "missing link," afforded us no little tugging and 

 plenty of amusement, in our fruitless efforts to keep him right side 

 up and his various members comparatively collected together. 

 Along toward evening he quite abandoned the transportation busi- 

 ness, flinging himself in wild gymnastics, and finally he slid off the 

 side of a corduroy and sank up to his middle in the muck. After 

 we had tugged at him for half an hour, during which time he main- 

 tained a strict neutrality, we convinced him, by means of a birch 

 rod, that he must take a hand in the encounter, whereupon he 

 roused up and floundered out. We waded the "upper crossing" of 

 the Wasatiquoik at dusk, having traveled eight miles ; the advance 

 guard had already prepared a camp. 



Next morning we got a fair start, and by noon had made the 

 remaining five miles to Ktaadn Lake, which we should have done 

 the day before. After we had pried our unfortunate horse out of 

 several holes in the first mile of road, and the other one had shown 



