THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
269 
river, he, being near-sighted, had not seen the Indian nor 
his canoe, and when I went back to the Indian’s assist¬ 
ance, did not see which way I went, and supposed that 
we were below and not above him, and so, making haste 
to catch up, he ran away from us* Having reached this 
clearing, a mile or more below our camp, the night over¬ 
took him, and he made a fire in a little hollow, and lay 
down by it in his blanket, still thinking that we were 
ahead of him. He thought it likely that he had heard 
the Indian call once the evening before, but mistook it for 
an owl. He had seen one botanical rarity before it was 
dark, — pure white JEpilobium angustifolium amidst the 
fields of pink ones, in the burnt lands. He had already 
stuck up the remnant of a lumberer’s shirt, found on the 
point, on a pole by the water-side, for a signal, and 
attached a note to it, to inform us that he had gone on 
to the lake, and that if he did not find us there, he would 
be back in a couple of hours. If he had not found us 
soon, he had some thoughts of going back in search of 
the solitary hunter whom we had met at Telos Lake, ten 
miles behind, and, if successful, hire him to take him to 
Bangor. But if this hunter had moved as fast as we, 
he would have been twenty miles off by this time, and 
who could guess in what direction? It would have been 
like looking for a needle in a hay-mow, to search for 
him in these woods. He had been considering how long 
he could live on berries alone. 
We substituted for liis note a card containing our 
names and destination, and the date of our visit, which 
Polis neatly enclosed in a piece of birch-bark to keep it 
dry. This has probably been read by some hunter or 
explorer ere this. 
We all had good appetites for the breakfast which we 
