stream, and we realized anew what delusive food the
imagination furnishes in an actual strait. A good deal of the crime
of this world, I am convinced, is the direct result of the unlicensed
play of the imagination in adverse circumstances. This reflection
had nothing to do with our actual situation; for we added to our
imagination patience, and to our patience long-suffering, and
probably all the Christian virtues would have been developed in us if
the descent had been long enough. Before we reached the bottom of
Caribou Pass, the water burst out from the rocks in a clear stream
that was as cold as ice. Shortly after, we struck the roaring brook
that issues from the Pass to the south. It is a stream full of
character, not navigable even for trout in the upper part, but a
succession of falls, cascades, flumes, and pools that would delight
an artist. It is not an easy bed for anything except water to
descend; and before we reached the level reaches, where the stream
flows with a murmurous noise through open woods, one of our party
began to show signs of exhaustion.

This was Old Phelps, whose appetite had failed the day before,--his
imagination being in better working order than his stomach: he had
eaten little that day, and his legs became so groggy that he was
obliged to rest at short intervals. Here was a situation! The
afternoon was wearing away. We had six or seven miles of unknown
wilderness to traverse, a portion of it swampy, in which a progress
of more than a mile an hour is difficult, and the condition of the
guide compelled even a slower march. What should we do in that
lonesome solitude if the guide became disabled? We couldn't carry
him out; could we find our own way out to get assistance? The guide
himself had never been there before; and although he knew the general
direction of our point of egress, and was entirely adequate to
extricate himself from any position in the woods, his knowledge was
of that occult sort possessed by woodsmen which it is impossible to
communicate. Our object was to strike a trail that led from the Au
Sable Pond, the other side of the mountain-range, to an inlet on Mud
Pond. We knew that if we traveled southwestward far enough we must
strike that trail, but how far? No one could tell. If we reached
that trail, and found a boat at the inlet, there would be only a row
of a couple of miles to the house at the foot of the lake. If no
boat was there, then we must circle the lake three