ost abundant
species in these woods, I attributed it to him. It is the one sound
that still links itself with those scenes in my mind.

At sunset the grouse began to drum in all parts of the woods about the
lake. I could hear five at one time, thump, thump, thump, thump,
thr-r-r-r-r-r-rr. It was a homely, welcome sound. As I returned to
camp at twilight, along the shore of the lake, the frogs also were in
full chorus. The older ones ripped out their responses to each other
with terrific force and volume. I know of no other animal capable of
giving forth so much sound, in proportion to its size, as a frog. Some
of these seemed to bellow as loud as a two-year-old bull. They were of
immense size, and very abundant. No frog-eater had ever been there.
Near the shore we felled a tree which reached far out in the lake.
Upon the trunk and branches, the frogs soon collected in large
numbers, and gamboled and splashed about the half submerged top, like
a parcel of schoolboys, making nearly as much noise.

After dark, as I was frying the fish, a panful of the largest trout
was accidently capsized in the fire. With rueful countenances we
contemplated the irreparable loss our commissariat had sustained by
this mishap; but remembering there was virtue in ashes, we poked the
half-consumed fish from the bed of coals and ate them, and they were
good.

We lodged that night on a brush-heap and slept soundly. The green,
yielding beech-twigs, covered with a buffalo robe, were equal to a
hair mattress. The heat and smoke from a large fire kindled in the
afternoon had banished every "no-see-em" from the locality, and in the
morning the sun was above the mountain before we awoke.

I immediately started again for the inlet, and went far up the stream
toward its source. A fair string of trout for breakfast was my reward.
The cattle with the bell were at the head of the valley, where they
had passed the night. Most of them were two-year-old steers. They came
up to me and begged for salt, and scared the fish by their
importunities.

We finished our bread that morning, and ate every fish we could catch,
and about ten o'clock prepared to leave the lake. The weather had been
admirable, and the lake as a gem, and I would gladly have spent a week
in the neighborhood; but the question of supplies was a serious one,
and would brook no delay.

When we reached, on our return, the point where we had crossed the
line of marked trees the day before,