THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
167 
sequence of a positive mental energy, but vague as a 
puff of smoke, suggesting no responsibility , and if you 
considered it, you would find that you had got nothing 
out of him. This was instead of the conventional palaver 
and smartness of the white man, and equally profitable. 
Most get no more than this out of the Indian, and pro¬ 
nounce him stolid accordingly. I was surprised to see 
what a foolish and impertinent style a Maine man, a 
passenger, used in addressing him, as if he were a 
child, which only made his eyes glisten a little. A tipsy 
Canadian asked him at a tavern, in a drawling tone, if 
he smoked, to which he answered with an indefinite 
“yes.” “ Won’t you lend me your pipe a little while ?” 
asked the other. He replied, looking straight by the 
man’s head, with a face singularly vacant to all neighbor¬ 
ing interests, “ Me got no pipe ”; yet I had seen him put 
a new one, with a supply of tobacco, into his pocket that 
morning. 
Our little canoe, so neat and strong, drew a favora¬ 
ble criticism from all the wiseacres among the tavern 
loungers along the road. By the roadside, close to the 
wheels, I noticed a splendid great purple-fringed orchis 
with a spike as big as an epilobium, which I would fain 
have stopped the stage to pluck, but as this had never 
been known to stop a bear, like the cur on the stage, the 
driver would probably have thought it a waste of time. 
When we reached the lake, about half past eight in 
the evening, it was still steadily raining, and harder than 
before; and, in that fresh, cool atmosphere, the hylodes 
were peeping and the toads singing about the lake uni¬ 
versally, as in the spring with us. It was as if the sea¬ 
son had revolved backward two or three months, or I 
had arrived at the abode of perpetual spring. 
