50 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



creeks and spring runs, kept it rearing and pitching 

 in the most frightful manner. The steers went at a 

 spanking pace ; indeed, it was a regular bovine gale ; 

 but their driver clung to their side amid the brush 

 and bowlders with desperate tenacity, and seemed to 

 manage them by signs and nudges, for he hardly u& 

 tered his orders aloud. But we got through without 

 any serious mishap, passing Mosquito Creek and Mos- 

 quito Pond, and flanking Mosquito Mountain, but see- 

 ing no mosquitoes, and brought up at dusk at a lum- 

 berman's old hay-barn, standing in the midst of a 

 lonely clearing on the shores of Moxie Lake. 



Here we passed the night, and were lucky in hav- 

 ing a good roof over our heads, for it rained heavily. 

 After we were rolled in our blankets and variously 

 disposed upon the haymow, Uncle Nathan lulled us to 

 sleep by a long and characteristic yarn. 



I had asked him, half jocosely, if he believed in 

 " spooks " ; but he took my question seriously, and 

 without answering it directly, proceeded to tell us 

 what he himself had known and witnessed. It was, 

 by the way, extremely difficult either to surprise or to 

 steal upon any of Uncle Nathan's private opinions 

 and beliefs about matters and things. He was as shy 

 of all debatable subjects as a fox is of a trap. He 

 usually talked in a circle, just as he hunted moose and 

 caribou, so as not to approach his point too rudely 

 and suddenly. He would keep on the lee side of his 

 interlocutor in spite of all one could do. He was 

 thoroughly good and reliable, but the wild creature" 

 of the woods, in pursuit of which he had spent so 

 much of his life, had taught him a curious gentleness 

 and indirection, and to keep himself in the back* 

 .ground ; he was careful that you should not scent his 



