288 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks 
of this river, which would be a journey of more than a 
hundred miles. Think of the denseness of the forest, 
the fallen trees and rocks, the windings of the river, the 
streams emptying in and the frequent swamps to be 
crossed. It made you shudder. Yet the Indian from 
time to time pointed out to us where he had thus crept 
along day after day when he was a boy of ten, and in a 
starving condition. He had been hunting far north of 
this with two grown Indians. The winter came on un¬ 
expectedly early, and the ice compelled them to leave 
their canoe at Grand Lake, and walk down the bank. 
They shouldered their furs and started for Oldtown. 
The snow was not deep enough for snow-shoes, or to 
cover the inequalities of the ground. Polis was soon 
too weak to carry any burden; but he managed to catch 
one otter. This was the most they all had to eat on this 
journey, and he remembered how good the yellow-lily 
roots were, made into a soup with the otter oiL He 
shared this food equally with the other two, but being 
so small he suffered much more than they. He waded 
through the Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was 
freezing cold and came up to his chin, and he, being 
very weak and emaciated, expected to be swept away. 
The first house which they reached was at Lincoln, and 
thereabouts they met a white teamster with supplies, who 
seeing their condition gave them as much of his load 
as they could eat. For six months after getting home 
he was very low, and did not expect to live, and was 
perhaps always the worse for it. 
We could not find much more than half of this day’s 
journey on our maps (the “ Map of the Public Lands of 
Maine and Massachusetts,” and “ Colton’s Railroad and 
