52 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
far as possible, keeping close to tbe shore, Tom seized 
the painter and leaped out upon a rock just visible in 
the water, but he lost his footing, notwithstanding his 
spiked boots, and was instantly amid the rapids ; but 
recovering himself by good luck, and reaching another 
rock, he passed the painter to me, who had followed 
him, and took his place again in the bows. Leaping 
from rock to rock in the shoal water, close to the shore, 
and now and then getting a bite with the rope round an 
upright one, I held the boat while. one reset his pole, 
and then all three forced it upward against any rapid. 
This was “warping up.” When a part of us walked 
round at such a place, we generally took the precaution 
to take out the most valuable part of the baggage, for 
fear of being swamped. 
As we poled up a swift rapid for half a mile above 
Aboljacarmegus Falls, some of the party read their own 
marks on the huge logs which lay piled up high and dry 
on the rocks on either hand, the relics probably of a jam 
which had taken place here in the Great Freshet in the 
spring. Many of these would have to wait for another 
great freshet, perchance, if they lasted so long, before 
they could be got off. It was singular enough to meet 
with property of theirs which they had never seen, and 
where they had never been before, thus detained by 
freshets and rocks when on its way to them. Methinks 
that must be where all my property lies, cast up on the 
rocks on some distant and unexplored stream, and wait¬ 
ing for an unheard-of freshet to fetch it down. O make 
haste, ye gods, with your winds and rains, and start the 
jam before it rots! 
The last half-mile carried us to the Sowadnehunk 
dead-water, so called from the stream of the same name, 
i 
