BIRCH BROWSINGS 183 
We lodged that night on a brush-heap and slept 
soundly. The green, yielding beech-twigs, covered 
with a buffalo robe, were equal to a hair mattress. 
The heat and smoke from a large fire kindled in the 
afternoon had banished every ‘“‘no-see-em” from 
the locality, and in the morning the sun was above 
the mountain before we awoke. 
I immediately started again for the inlet, and 
went far up the stream toward its source. A fair 
string of trout for breakfast was my reward. The 
cattle with the bell were at the head of the valley, 
where they had passed the night. Most of them 
were two-year-old steers. They came up to me and 
begged for salt, and scared the fish by their impor- 
tunities. 
We finished our bread that morning, and ate 
every fish we could catch, and about ten o’clock 
prepared to leave the lake. The weather had been 
admirable, and the lake was a gem, and I would 
gladly have spent a week in the neighborhood; but 
the question of supplies was a serious one, and 
would brook no delay. 
When we reached, on our return, the point where 
we had crossed the line of marked trees the day 
before, the question arose whether we should still 
trust ourselves to this line, or follow our own trail 
back to the spring and the battlement of rocks on 
the top of the mountain, and thence to the rock 
where the guide had left us. We decided in favor 
of the former course. After a march of three 
quarters of an hour the blazed trees ceased, and we 
