FOLLOWING A LOST TRAIL . 
49 
Stout young saplings had grown up within it, 
and the long interlacing stems of the hobble- 
bush, or “ tangle-foot ” as Berry called it, con¬ 
cealed its many inequalities. We proceeded 
slowly, cutting away bushes as we went, and 
the horse followed with the wagon, which rose 
and fell over logs and boulders as though tossed 
on the waves of the sea. At the end of half a 
mile, we decided to leave the horse with all of 
our impedimenta except axes and luncheon. A 
space was accordingly cleared, and Kitty, tied 
to a large tree, was fenced in on two sides to 
prevent her from walking around the tree, and 
so choking herself. 
The trees which formed the forest were of 
many kinds, making it much more interesting 
than the monotonous spruce growth of the 
higher slopes. Those which were to all appear¬ 
ance the oldest were the yellow birches, hun¬ 
dreds of them having trunks over ten feet in 
circumference at a point two feet from the 
ground. Some of the giant hemlocks were 
larger, but they are, I believe, trees of more 
rapid growth than the yellow birch and so prob¬ 
ably less venerable. There was a large repre¬ 
sentation of ancient beech-trees with trunks 
which looked as hard as granite, yet which made 
me think of wrestlers with swollen muscles 
strained and knotted under the tightly drawn 
