68 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
on them. In one place we noticed a rock, two or three 
feet in diameter, lodged nearly twenty feet high in the 
crotch of a tree. For the whole four miles, we saw but 
one rill emptying in, and the volume of water did not 
seem to be increased from the first. We travelled thus 
very rapidly with a downward impetus, and grew re¬ 
markably expert at leaping from rock to rock, for leap 
we must, and leap we did, whether there was any rock 
at the right distance or not. It was a pleasant picture 
when the foremost turned about and looked up the wind¬ 
ing ravine, walled in with rocks and the green forest, to 
see, at intervals of a rod or two, a red-shirted or green- 
jacketed mountaineer against the white torrent, leaping 
down the channel with his pack on his back, or pausing 
upon a convenient rock in the midst of the torrent to 
mend a rent in his clothes, or unstrap the dipper at his 
belt to take a draught of the water. At one place we 
were startled by seeing, on a little sandy shelf by the 
side of the stream, the fresh print of a man’s foot, and 
for a moment realized how Robinson Crusoe felt in a 
similar case; but at last we remembered that we had 
struck this stream on our way up, though we could not 
have told where, and one had descended into the ravine 
for a drink. The cool air above, and the continual 
bathing of our bodies in mountain water, alternate foot, 
sitz, douche, and plunge baths, made this walk exceed¬ 
ingly refreshing, and we had travelled only a mile or 
two, after leaving the torrent, before every thread of our 
clothes was as dry as usual, owing perhaps to a peculiar 
quality in the atmosphere. 
After leaving the torrent, being in doubt about our 
course, Tom threw down his pack at the foot of the lof¬ 
tiest spruce tree at hand, and shinned up the bare trunk, 
