152 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
amber masses, bubbles, sheets of foam, and 
yellow leaves dropped by the ripening trees. 
As it seemed about to hurl itself upon me and 
sweep me down its bed, it disappeared. 
When the water reached the bottom of the 
crevasse, it turned aside and flowed at right 
angles to its course until a fault in the rock 
allowed it to steal out into the daylight. The 
crevasse was full of sounds, and amid the 
splashing, gurgling, and roaring of the water, 
the ear could fancy that it detected wild cries, 
sobs, and moans. 
Above this rift and cavern of wild waters 
came many a rod of steep climbing. Again 
and again an impassable cliff seemed to bar our 
way, but each time the stream showed us how, 
by a zigzag or a long diagonal, we could avoid 
the abrupt face of the rock and find a way to a 
higher level. Finally, after nearly four hours 
of climbing we found ourselves in a moist and 
mossy hollow between two of the summits of the 
mountain. Northward the rocks rose abruptly 
to the wooded crest of the highest ridge, south¬ 
ward they rose to the dome-shaped ledge which 
forms the best height for observation, wind and 
fire having left it as bald as an egg. It was 
impossible to cross the moist hollow dry shod, 
for at no point was it less than a rod wide and 
in parts it was forty or fifty yards from ledge to 
