188 BIRCH BROWSINGS. 



when he turned and ran back into the house without 

 pausing to reply. In a moment the whole family 

 hastily rushed into the yard, and turned their facea 

 toward us. If we had come down their chimney, they 

 could not have seemed more astonished. Not making 

 out what they said, I went down to the house, and 

 learned to my chagrin that we were still on the Mill 

 Brook side, having crossed only a spur of the mount- 

 ain. We had not borne sufficiently to the left, so 

 that the main range, which, at the point of crossing, 

 suddenly breaks off to the southeast, still intervened 

 between us and the lake. We were about five miles, 

 as the water runs, from the point of starting, and over 

 two from the lake. We must go directly back to the 

 top of the range where the guide had left us, and 

 then, by keeping well to the left, we would soon come 

 to a line of marked trees, which would lead us to the 

 lake. So turning upon our trail, we doggedly began 

 the work of undoing what we had just done, in all 

 cases a disagreeable task, in this case a very laborious 

 one also. It was after sunset when we turned back, 

 and before we had got half-way up the mountain it 

 began to be quite dark. We were often obliged to 

 \est our packs against trees and take breath, which 

 made our progress slow. Finally a halt was called, 

 beside an immense flat rock which had paused in its 

 blide down the mountain, and we prepared to encamp 

 for the night. A fire was built, the rock cleared off, 

 I small ration of bread served out, our accoutrements 

 bung up out of the way of the hedgehogs that were 



