LIFTING THE TRAPS. 213 



LIFTING THE TRAPS. 



ON the northwest of the State of Maine exists a 

 ridge of hills which divide it from the township of 

 Success, in the State of New Hampshire. Whatever 

 may have been the cause (possibly the presumption 

 of the namer), it has remained as wild and unsettled 

 as it was in the days when the whole country be- 

 longed to the aborigines. No, I make a mistake ; a ruin 

 of a tumble-down diminutive barn, on close scrutiny, 

 may be found. Th e area of this township is composed 

 of an immense meadow (through which a clear but deep 

 and sluggish stream flows) and the pine-clad slopes 

 that divide it from the State of Maine. For some 

 weeks I had been residing eight or ten miles distant 

 from Success. The person in whose house I stayed was 

 a trapper during winter, when the inhospitable climate 

 foiled any attempt at cultivating what at no season 

 was a productive soil. ISTight after night with pleas- 

 ure I listened to his stories of how he had run down 



