to relieve the
diet of trout to which we looked forward.

At an early hour we reached the rock where we had parted with the
guide, and looked around us into the dense, trackless woods with many
misgivings. To strike out now on our own hook, where the way was so
blind and after the experience we had just had, was a step not to be
carelessly taken. The tops of these mountains are so broad, and a
short distance in the woods seems so far, that one is by no means
master of the situation after reaching the summit. And then there are
so many spurs and offshoots and changes of direction, added to the
impossibility of making any generalization by the aid of the eye, that
before one is aware of it he is very wide of his mark.

I remembered now that a young farmer of my acquaintance had told me
how he had made a long day's march through the heart of this region,
without path or guide of any kind, and had hit his mark squarely. He
had been barkpeeling in Callikoon,--a famous country for
barkpeeling,--and, having got enough of it, he desired to reach his
home on Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous journey between
the two places. To do this necessitated a march of ten or twelve miles
across several ranges of mountains and through an unbroken forest,--a
hazardous undertaking in which no one would join him. Even the old
hunters who were familiar with the ground dissuaded him and predicted
the failure of his enterprise. But having made up his mind, he
possessed himself thoroughly of the topography of the country from the
aforesaid hunters, shouldered his axe, and set out, holding a strait
course through the woods, and turning aside for neither swamps,
streams, nor mountains. When he paused to rest he would mark some
object ahead of him with his eye, in order that on getting up again,
he might not deviate from his course. His directors had told him of a
hunter's cabin about midway on his route, which if he struck he might
be sure he was right. About noon this cabin was reached, and at sunset
he emerged at the head of Dry Brook.

After looking in vain for the line of marked trees, we moved off to
the left in a doubtful, hesitating manner, keeping on the highest
ground and blazing the trees as we went. We were afraid to go
downhill, lest we should descend to soon; our vantage-ground was high
ground. A thick fog coming on, we were more bewildered than ever.
Still we pressed forward, climbing up ledges and wading through ferns