river!" I stopped twenty times, thinking I heard its
loud roar, always deceived by the wind in the tree-tops; I began to
entertain serious doubts about the compass,--when suddenly I became
aware that I was no longer on level ground: I was descending a slope;
I was actually in a ravine. In a moment more I was in a brook newly
formed by the rain. "Thank Heaven!" I cried: "this I shall follow,
whatever conscience or the compass says." In this region, all
streams go, sooner or later, into the valley. This ravine, this
stream, no doubt, led to the river. I splashed and tumbled along
down it in mud and water. Down hill we went together, the fall
showing that I must have wandered to high ground. When I guessed
that I must be close to the river, I suddenly stepped into mud up to
my ankles. It was the road,--running, of course, the wrong way, but
still the blessed road. It was a mere canal of liquid mud; but man
had made it, and it would take me home. I was at least three miles
from the point I supposed I was near at sunset, and I had before me a
toilsome walk of six or seven miles, most of the way in a ditch; but
it is truth to say that I enjoyed every step of it. I was safe; I
knew where I was; and I could have walked till morning. The mind had
again got the upper hand of the body, and began to plume itself on
its superiority: it was even disposed to doubt whether it had been
"lost" at all.

III

A FIGHT WITH A TROUT

Trout fishing in the Adirondacks would be a more attractive pastime
than it is but for the popular notion of its danger. The trout is a
retiring and harmless animal, except when he is aroused and forced
into a combat; and then his agility, fierceness, and vindictiveness
become apparent. No one who has studied the excellent pictures
representing men in an open boat, exposed to the assaults of long,
enraged trout flying at them through the open air with open mouth,
ever ventures with his rod upon the lonely lakes of the forest
without a certain terror, or ever reads of the exploits of daring
fishermen without a feeling of admiration for their heroism. Most of
their adventures are thrilling, and all of them are, in narration,
more or less unjust to the trout: in fact, the object of them seems
to be to exhibit, at the expense of the trout, the shrewdness, the
skill, and the muscular power of the sportsman. My own simple story
has few of these recommendations.

We had built our bark camp one summer and we