154 "^HE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



catching on the snags and stubs ; and where 

 a grove of thick-growing young spruces or a 

 balsams had been burned, the stiff and brittle 

 twigs pricked like so much coral. Most 

 difficult of all were the dry water-courses, 

 choked with alders, where the intertwined 

 tangle of tough stems formed an almost liter- 

 ally impenetrable barrier to our progress. 

 Nearly every movement — leaping, climbing, 

 swinging one's self up with one's hands, burst- 

 ing through stiff bushes, plunging into and 

 out of bogs — was one of strain and exertion ; 

 the fatigue was tremendous, and steadily con- 

 tinued, so that in an hour every particle of 

 clothing I had on was wringing wet with sweat. 



At noon we halted beside a little brook for 

 a bite of lunch — a chunk of cold frying-pan 

 bread, which was all we had. 



While at lunch I made a capture. I was 

 sitting on a great stone by the edge of the 

 brook, idly gazing at a water-wren which had 

 come up from a short flight — I can call it 

 nothing else — underneath the water, and was 

 singing sweetly from a spray-splashed log. 

 Suddenly a small animal swam across the little 

 pool at my feet. It was less in size than a 

 mouse, and as it paddled rapidly underneath 

 the water its body seemed flattened like a 

 disc and was spangled with tiny bubbles, like 

 specks of silver. It was a water-shrew, a 

 rare little beast. I sat motionless and watched 

 both the shrew and the water-wren — water- 

 ousel, as it should rightly be named. The 

 latter, emboldened by my quiet, presently flew 

 by me to a little raj)ids close at hand, light- 

 ingon a round stone, and then slipping un- 



