had that morning for breakfast, and that was so
delectable after four days of fish, linger on my tongue; nor yet tarry
to set down the talk of that honest, weatherworn passer-by who paused
before our door, and every moment on the point of resuming his way, yet
stood for an hour and recited his adventures hunting deer and bears
on these mountains. Having replenished our stock of bread and salt
pork at the house of one of the settlers, midday found us at Reed's
shanty,--one of those temporary structures erected by the bark jobber
to lodge and board his "hands" near their work. Jim not being at home,
we could gain no information from the "women folks" about the way, nor
from the men who had just come in to dinner; so we pushed on, as near
as we could, according to the instructions we had previously received.
Crossing the creek, we forced our way up the side of the mountain,
through a perfect _cheval-de-frise_ of fallen and peeled hemlocks, and,
entering the dense woods above, began to look anxiously about for the
wood-road. My companions at first could see no trace of it; but knowing
that a casual wood-road cut in winter, when there was likely to be two
or three feet of snow on the ground, would present only the slightest
indications to the eye in summer, I looked a little closer, and could
make out a mark or two here and there. The larger trees had been
avoided, and the axe used only on the small saplings and underbrush,
which had been lopped off a couple of feet from the ground. By being
constantly on the alert, we followed it till near the top of the
mountain; but, when looking to see it "tilt" over the other side, it
disappeared altogether. Some stumps of the black cherry were found, and
a solitary pair of snow-shoes was hanging high and dry on a branch, but
no further trace of human hands could we see. While we were resting
here a couple of hermit thrushes, one of them with some sad defect in
his vocal powers which barred him from uttering more than a few notes
of his song, gave voice to the solitude of the place. This was the
second instance in which I have observed a song-bird with apparently
some organic defect in its instrument. The other case was that of a
bobolink, which, hover in mid-air and inflate its throat as it might,
could only force out a few incoherent notes. But the bird in each case
presented this striking contrast to human examples of the kind, that it
was apparently just as proud of itself, and just a