272 I GO A- FISHING. 



which I went, tripping at every fourth step, and plunging 

 into indescribable heaps of brush and leaves and stones, 

 until I came out suddenly on the edge of a piece of burnt 

 land, which a fire had gone over last summer. A pile of 

 fallen trees lay on the very border of the unburned forest, 

 and I sought shelter among them from a driving blast, 

 which now brought snow with it in quantities. I faced 

 the tempest a moment, and thought of that passage in 

 which Festus described the angels thronging to Eden, and 

 ' alighting like to snow-flakes.' I wished that there were 

 more similarity, and that the flakes were fewer and farther 

 between. But there was a terrible reality in the night 

 and storm, which drove poetry from my brain. At this 

 moment I discovered a pile of hemlock bark, gathered by 

 some one to be. carried to the tanneries. It was the first 

 indication of this being an inhabited part of the world ; 

 but it was no proof that inhabitants were near, for these 

 piles of bark are often gathered in remote parts of the 

 forest. But it was a great discovery. There was enough 

 of it to roof the City Hall ; and in fifteen minutes there 

 was as neat a cabin built among the fallen timber as any 

 man could desire under the circumstances. It was artist- 

 ically built too, for I had built such before ; and, by-the- 

 by, I recollect one which Joe Willis once constructed, in 

 which the chimney arrangements proved unsafe, and we 

 awoke at about daylight among the flames of our entire 

 establishment. True, he laid it to my restlessness in the 

 night, and actually charged me with getting my feet into 

 the fire and scattering the coals, while I dreamed of the 

 immortal — who was it that won immortality by setting fire 

 to the Temple of Diana ? But it was false, atrociously 



false. I was dreaming of , but let that pass. 



"The wind grew furious, and the snow came thicker, 



