into cleanliness, and were not unfit to camp in for a few
days. It was here that we had decided to make our headquarters, while
exploring the streams and forest adjacent.

We had taken an ax as well as a gun; and by stopping to clear an
occasional windfall from the old road and going slowly over the logs,
stones and holes, the horses took us up to Clear Pond in about two
hours.

The deciduous trees were now nearly bare, save here and there a beech or
a deep purple ash. The golden red foliage of the sugar maples and the
yellow birches lay rustling under foot.

The woods looked light and open since the leaves had fallen. Only the
hemlocks and spruces retained their somber density, with a few firs in
the swamps and here and there a lofty pine on the mountain sides. All
the summer birds had gone already; but a few red-headed woodpeckers were
still tapping decayed tree trunks; and numerous jays made the woodland
resound to their varied outcries, first shrill and obstreperous, then
plaintive. Far up a hillside of poplar, a horde of crows were clamoring
over some corvine scandal, perhaps.

It was a sylvan, but wholly lonely scene, save for the partridges
rising, after every few rods, from the path in rapid whirring flight, or
standing still for a moment with sharply nodding heads and a quick,
short note of alarm, ere taking wing.

Willis, walking ahead with his gun, soon startled us with its near
report, adding a fine speckled cock to our prospective larder; erelong
he shot another and still another. These fine birds were very plenty in
the borders of the "great woods."

On reaching Clear Pond, we were obliged to say good-by to our team. The
wagon could go no further; for here the more recent lumber road
terminated, the trail beyond being older and much obstructed by fallen
trees.

Then began the real labor of carrying our baskets. Addison and I led off
with one basket and the ax; while Tom and Willis followed with the
other. The girls came on at leisure, in the rear; they were seeing a
great deal that was novel in the woods; and having but light loads, they
could enjoy it better than we boys who were carrying the bushel baskets.

Going up the side of the wooded ridge, a pine marten was espied in full
chase after a red squirrel, up and down the trunk of a spruce.

"What a specimen he would make to mount!" Addison exclaimed, and
dropping his "ear" of our basket, unslung his gun and ran forward to get
a shot; but the