A SEARCH FOR THE PLEIADES 253 
the most of every bit of protection, — beating up 
to shadowward, as it were, instead of to wind- 
ward. Our guide walked on before us, erect 
and manly, wearing one of those broad canvas 
hats which are characteristic of this region, 
and furnish one of our few glimpses of pictur- 
esque costume. He had led for years the gen- 
uinely outdoor life which belongs to our moun- 
taineers. As a rule, farmers are far less rich 
in conversation than seaside people, — sailors, 
pilots, fishermen; the rural lives are rather 
monotonous and uneventful; but when you 
come where the farms actually abut upon un- 
tamed forest, the art of conversation revives, 
and James Merrill was as good as Thoreau, so 
far as the habit of observation could carry him. 
That he did not sometimes romance a little, I 
am not quite prepared to affirm. 
He showed us, in the occasional deposits of 
soft mud by the water bars on the mountain 
road, how to distinguish squirrel tracks, sable 
tracks, bear tracks. A bear had passed, as he 
proved to us, within a few days, had weighed 
about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and 
was probably two years old. He pointed out 
to us where, in sandy places, the young par- 
tridges had nestled and fluttered like hens in 
the path, and where the hedgehogs had gnawed 
and torn the roots in the wood. He told us 
