NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 121 



The following day, being Sunday, was to be a day of 

 rest, but when I woke in the morning, rather late, I found 

 that the younger Dewey had set out before dawn for Beaver 

 Pond, where we had cached the collapsible canvas canoe 

 on our journey down. It rained all the day with a de- 

 pressing persistence, and towards the afternoon a dense 

 mist obscured the country. The rising of this mist caused 

 Walter Dewey some anxiety, as his brother had had prac- 

 tically no experience of the woods, and had only been over 

 the route through which his way lay when he travelled up 

 with us ten days before. When the day closed and dark- 

 ness came on we all began to share Walter's fears, for it 

 certainly is easy to lose one's way in thick weather, and 

 once lost an individual's life often depends upon his tem- 

 perament. 



Perhaps foremost among the subjects which are dis- 

 cussed with perennial interest by those who live close to 

 nature is the position of the man who loses himself in an 

 uninhabited tract of country. To be so lost is an experi- 

 ence which most people who have spent any considerable 

 portion of their lives in forests or in wildernesses have at 

 one time or another undergone. The moment at which a 

 man first realises that he is lost is, unluckily, in some cases 

 a moment of panic. In blind haste the unfortunate indi- 

 vidual rushes off, generally in the wrong direction, and, 

 driven by his nameless terror, travels over long distances, 

 exhausting himself uselessly. Nine out of ten tragedies of 

 the woods have been the direct result of giving way to 

 this almost uncontrollable impulse ; in many a case some 

 inexperienced hunter or prospector, even though carrying 

 a rifle and the other small impedimenta without which no 

 one should ever leave the main camp, has hurried on and 

 on, deeper and deeper into the bush, using up his strength 

 and finally dying of starvation, when the knowledge of a 

 simple rule or two would have saved his life. Of course, as 



