The Trail 



where impenetrable alder-thickets make it im- 

 possible to hold a straight course. Because all 

 this growth is useless to the lumberman, there is 

 no cutting to be seen; but because I have passed 

 this way before, instinctively following the same 

 course like an animal, a faint winding trail begins 

 to appear, with a bent twig or a blazed tree at 

 every turn to give direction. 



As you move forward more confidently, learning 

 the woodsman's way of looking far ahead to pick 

 up the guiding signs before you come to them, the 

 dim forest suddenly brightens; a wave of light 

 runs in, saying as it passes overhead that you are 

 near an opening. As if to confirm the message, 

 the trail runs into a well-worn deer-path, which 

 looks as if the animals that used it knew well 

 where they were going. Clumps of delicate young 

 larches spring up ahead; between them open 

 filmy vistas, like windows draped in lace, and 

 across one vista stretches a ribbon of silver. A 

 few more steps and there! my little pond is 

 smiling at you, reflecting the blue deeps of heaven 

 or the white of passing clouds from its setting of 

 pale-green larch-trees and crimson mosses. 



And now, if you are responsive, you shall have 

 a new impression of this old world, the wonderful 

 impression which a wilderness lake gives at the 

 moment of discovery, but never again afterward. 



[241] 



