mm V*ttcktJ Amerii** 



feel that the recollections of those two 

 seasons in the New Brunswick woods had 

 made it worth living. 



For the sake of communication with 

 the outside world, we employed a special 

 mail-carrier, who made the round trip to 

 the railroad station and return about once 

 in ten days. We would tell him each 

 time about where our camp should be ; 

 and when he struck the stream on which 

 we were temporarily located, he would 

 travel up or down along the banks until 

 he found us. There were no other people 

 within many miles of us; and if he saw 

 human footprints on a sandbar, or axe- 

 marks on a tree, he knew that we had 

 made them, and were in the immediate 



vicinitv. The ease with which he found 



j 



us on every occasion, travelling through 

 the woods as he did where there were no 

 roads, was one of the most clever feats of 

 woodcraft that I have ever seen. 



The wealth of animal life in those 

 woods was constantly forced upon our at- 

 tention. Impudent moose-birds would 

 alight on our improvised dinner-table, and 

 the red squirrels and white-bellied mice 

 quarrelled for the fallen crumbs, while 

 after nightfall the chattering martens 

 would shriek out their cat-like disputes 



144 



