t in holes under the treacherous
carpeting. Add to this that stems of great trees were laid
longitudinally and transversely and criss-cross over and among the
rocks, and the reader can see that a good deal of work needs to be done
to make this a practicable highway for anything but a squirrel....

We had had no water since our daylight breakfast: our lunch on the
mountain had been moistened only by the fog. Our thirst began to be that
of Tantalus, because we could hear the water running deep down among
the rocks, but we could not come at it. The imagination drank the
living 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 extricat