he period when we were squirrels or cats, in some former state
of being.

Somehow we pierced, as man does ever, whether he owes it to the beast or
the man in him. From time to time, when in this struggle we came to an
open point of rock, we would remember that we were on high, and turn to
assure ourselves that nether earth was where we had left it. We always
found it _in situ_, in belts green, white, and blue, a tricolor of
woods, water, and sky. Lakes were there without number, forest without
limit. We could not analyze yet, for there was work to do. Also,
whenever we paused, there was the old temptation, blueberries. Every
out-cropping ledge offered store of tonic, ozone-fed blueberries, or
of mountain-cranberries, crimson and of concentrated flavor, or of the
white snowberry, most delicate of fruits that grow.

As we were creeping over the top of the dwarf wood, Cancut, who was in
advance, suddenly disappeared; he seemed to fall through a gap in the
spruces, and we heard his voice calling in cavernous tones. We crawled
forward and looked over. It was the upper camp of the Bostonians. They
had profited by a hole in the rocks, and chopped away the stunted scrubs
to enlarge it into a snug artificial abyss. It was snug, and so to the
eye is a cell at Sing-Sing. If they were very misshapen Bostonians, they
may have succeeded in lying there comfortably. I looked down ten feet
into the rough chasm, and I saw, _Corpo di Bacco!_ I saw a cork.

To this station our predecessors had come in an easy day's walk from the
river; here they had tossed through a night, and given a whole day to
finish the ascent, returning hither again for a second night. As we
purposed to put all this travel within one day, we could not stay and
sympathize with the late tenants. A little more squirrel-like skipping
and cat-like creeping over the spruces, and we were out among bulky
boulders and rough _debris_ on a shoulder of the mountain. Alas! the
higher, the more hopeless. Katahdin, as he had taken pains to inform us,
meant to wear the veil all day. He was drawing down the white drapery
about his throat and letting it fall over his shoulders. Sun and wind
struggled mightily with his sulky fit; sunshine rifted off bits of the
veil, and wind seized, whirled them away, and, dragging them over the
spruces below, tore them to rags. Evidently, if we wished to see the
world, we must stop here and survey, before the growing vapor covered
all. We climbed t