of an ordinary trouting
excursion to the woods. People inexperienced in such matters,
sitting in their rooms and thinking of these things, of all the
poets have sung and romancers written, are apt to get sadly taken in
when they attempt to realize their dreams. They expect to enter a
sylvan paradise of trout, cool retreats, laughing brooks,
picturesque views, and balsamic couches, instead of which they find
hunger, rain, smoke, toil, gnats, mosquitoes, dirt, broken rest,
vulgar guides, and salt pork; and they are very apt not to see where
the fun comes in. But he who goes in a right spirit will not be
disappointed, and will find the taste of this kind of life better,
though bitterer, than the writers have described.

VIII

A BED OF BOUGHS

When Aaron came again to camp and tramp with me, or, as he wrote,
"to eat locusts and wild honey with me in the wilderness," it was
past the middle of August, and the festival of the season neared its
close. We were belated guests, but perhaps all the more eager on
that account, especially as the country was suffering from a
terrible drought, and the only promise of anything fresh or tonic or
cool was in primitive woods and mountain passes.

"Now, my friend," said I, "we can go to Canada, or to the Maine
woods, or to the Adirondacks, and thus have a whole loaf and a big
loaf of this bread which you know as well as I will have heavy
streaks in it, and will not be uniformly sweet; or we can seek
nearer woods, and content ourselves with one week instead of four,
with the prospect of a keen relish to the last. Four sylvan weeks
sound well, but the poetry is mainly confined to the first one. We
can take another slice or two of the Catskills, can we not, without
being sated with kills and dividing ridges?"

"Anywhere," replied Aaron, "so that we have a good tramp and plenty
of primitive woods. No doubt we should find good browsing on
Peakamoose, and trout enough in the streams at its base."

So without further ado we made ready, and in due time found
ourselves, with our packs on our backs, entering upon a pass in the
mountains that led to the valley of the Rondout.

The scenery was wild and desolate in the extreme, the mountains on
either hand looking as if they had been swept by a tornado of stone.
Stone avalanches hung suspended on their sides, or had shot down
into the chasm below. It was a kind of Alpine scenery, where crushed
and broken boulders covered the earth inst