THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
205 
This was one of his homes. I saw where he had 
sometimes stretched his moose-hides on the opposite or 
sunny north side of the river, where there was a narrow 
meadow. 
After we had selected a place for our camp, and kin¬ 
dled our fire, almost exactly on the site of the Indian’s 
last camp here, he, looking up, observed, “That tree 
danger.” It was a dead part, more than a foot in diam- 
ter, of a large canoe-birch, which branched at the ground. 
This branch, rising thirty feet or more, slanted directly 
over the spot which we had chosen for our bed. I told 
him to try it with his axe ; but he could not shake it 
perceptibly, and, therefore, seemed inclined to disregard 
it, and my companion expressed his willingness to run 
the risk. But it seemed to me that we should be fools 
to lie under it, for though the lower part was firm, the 
top, for aught we knew, might be just ready to fall, and 
we should at any rate be very uneasy if the wind arose 
in the night. It is a common accident for men camping 
in the woods to be killed by a falling tree. So the camp 
was moved to the other side of the fire. 
It was, as usual, a damp and shaggy forest, that Cau- 
comgomoc one, and the most you knew about it was, that 
on this side it stretched toward the settlements, and on 
that to still more unfrequented regions. You carried so 
much topography in your mind always, —- and sometimes 
it seemed to make a considerable difference whether 
you sat or lay nearer the settlements, or farther off, than 
your companions, — were the rear or frontier man of the 
camp. But there is really the same difference between 
our positions wherever we may be camped, and some are 
nearer the frontiers on feather-beds in the towns than 
others on fir-twigs in the backwoods. 
