fctf a 



a dead limb occasionally prodded me. With the 

 deliberation of a blind man I descended the long, 

 steep, broken, slippery slope, into the bottom 

 of a canon. Now and then I came out upon a 

 jumping-off place; here I felt before and below 

 with a slender staff for a place to descend ; occa- 

 sionally no bottom could be found, and upon 

 this report I would climb back a short distance 

 and search out a way. 



Activity kept me warm, although the cold 

 rain drenched me and the slipperiness of slopes 

 and ledges never allowed me to forget the law of 

 falling bodies. At last a roaring torrent told me 

 that I was at the bottom of a slope. Apparently 

 I had come down by the very place where the 

 stream contracted and dashed into a deep, nar- 

 row box canon. Not being able to go down 

 stream or make a crossing at this point, I turned 

 and went up the stream for half a mile or so, 

 where I crossed the swift, roaring water in inky 

 darkness on a fallen Douglas spruce, for such 

 was the arrangement of its limbs and the feel of 

 the wood in its barkless trunk, that these told me 

 it was a spruce, though I could see nothing. 



227 



