DUNFORD'S FARM TO MARQUETTE 303 



The distance to Marquette from Mr. Dunford's farm 

 was about eighty miles as the crow flies, but a route was 

 mapped out for me which, though it increased the length 

 of the journey by thirty miles, I was assured I should 

 find an immense advantage in taking, not only on account 

 of its being a better road, but because I should also have 

 a succession of farms and other places of call where I 

 could obtain food and shelter. Mr. Dunford kindly offered 

 to send either one of his sons or a man with me to show 

 me the road ; but considering the trouble he would have, 

 and that he must return alone, I would not agree to it. 

 My self-confidence at this period was illimitable, and I 

 would have set out on a thousand miles journey alone 

 without hesitation. A mere hundred then, I laughed at ; 

 but I soon found, as all youngsters do, that to resolve 

 and to execute are two very different things, however 

 closely they are allied. 



The road lay through forests nearly the whole dis- 

 tance. The first two nights I stopped at hamlets of 

 small size ; and the third at a large farm, getting rough 

 but most hearty hospitalit}^ at each place. But the roads 

 between them were execrable ; in fact there were no roads. 

 Near the hamlets, for a mile or two, there was a cart track, 

 but it was in such a bad state from the passage of heavy 

 wains that I found it better to pick my way through the 

 forest by the side of it. This road had originally been 

 made by laying logs side by side ; but these, of course, had 

 soon rotted, and being repaired piece by piece had left it in 

 a most treacherous condition. For while a portion of the 

 road seemed firm and good, and induced me to urge my 

 old mare into about the best trot she had ever done in her 

 old age, we suddenly floundered on to rotten logs that 

 gave way beneath us, and the cart sank in up to the axle- 

 trees, as did the hind-quarters of the mare till she was 

 half hid from sight. Finding herself in chancery, she did 

 a very wise thing — remained quite passive ; but of all the 

 comical figures she cut ! — there it was no joke to me. 



