ramp brought us to an old clearing with some
rude, tumble-down log buildings that many years before had been
occupied by the bark and lumber men. The prospect for trout was so good
in the stream hereabouts, and the scene so peaceful and inviting, shone
upon by the dreamy August sun, that we concluded to tarry here until
the next day. It was a page of pioneer history opened to quite
unexpectedly. A dim footpath led us a few yards to a superb spring, in
which a trout from the near creek had taken up his abode. We took
possession of what had been a shingle-shop, attracted by its huge
fireplace. We floored it with balsam boughs, hung its walls with our
"traps," and sent the smoke curling again from its disused chimney.

The most musical and startling sound we heard in the woods greeted our
ears that evening about sundown as we sat on a log in front of our
quarters,--the sound of slow, measured pounding in the valley below us.
We did not know how near we were to human habitations, and the report
of the lumberman's mallet, like the hammering of a great woodpecker,
was music to the ear and news to the mind. The air was still and dense,
and the silence such as alone broods over these little openings in the
primitive woods. My soldier started as if he had heard a signal-gun.
The sound, coming so far through the forest, sweeping over those great
wind-harps of trees, became wild and legendary, though probably made by
a lumberman driving a wedge or working about his mill.

We expected a friendly visit from porcupines that night, as we saw
where they had freshly gnawed all about us; hence, when a red squirrel
came and looked in upon us very early in the morning and awoke us by
his snickering and giggling, my comrade cried out, "There is your
porcupig." How the frisking red rogue seemed to enjoy what he had
found! He looked in at the door and snickered, then in at the window,
then peeked down from between the rafters and cachinnated till his
sides must have ached; then struck an attitude upon the chimney, and
fairly squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact, he grew so
obstreperous, and so disturbed our repose, that we had to "shoo" him
away with one of our boots. He declared most plainly that he had never
before seen so preposterous a figure as we cut lying there in the
corner of that old shanty.

The morning boded rain, the week to which we had limited ourselves drew
near its close, and we concluded to finish our holiday worthily