on of the time.

We got out of that swamp with no unnecessary delay and made for a spruce
thicket. Ordinarily one does not welcome a spruce thicket, for it
resembles a tangle of barbed wires. But it was a boon now. We couldn't
scratch all the places at once and the spruce thicket would help. We
plunged into it and let it dig, and scrape, and protect us from those
whizzing, circling blood-gluttons of the swamp. Yet it was cruel going.
I have never seen such murderous brush. I was already decorated with
certain areas of "New Skin," but I knew that after this I should need a
whole one. Having our rods and guns made it harder. In places we were
obliged to lie perfectly flat to worm and wriggle through. And the heat
was intense and our thirst a torture. Yet in the end it was worth while
and the payment was not long delayed. Just beyond the spruce thicket ran
a little spring rivulet, cold as ice. Lying on its ferny margin we drank
and drank, and the gods themselves cannot create a more exquisite joy
than that. We followed the rivulet to where it fed the brook, a little
way below. There we found a good-sized pool, and trout. Also a cool
breeze and a huge bowlder--complete luxury. We rested on the big
stone--I mean I did--and fished, while Eddie was trying to find the way
out. I said I would wait there until a relief party arrived. It was no
use. Eddie threatened to leave me at last if I didn't come on, and I had
no intention of being left alone in that forgotten place.

We struggled on. Finally near sunset of that long, hard June day, we
passed out of the thicket tangle, ascended a slope and found ourselves
in an open grove of whispering pines that through all the years had
somehow escaped the conflagration and the ax. Tall colonnades they
formed--a sort of Grove of Dodona which because of some oracle, perhaps,
the gods had spared and the conquering vandals had not swept away. From
the top of the knoll we caught a glimpse of water through the trees, and
presently stood on the shore of Little Tobeatic Lake.

So it was we reached the end of our quest--the farthest point in the
unknown. I hardly know what I had expected: trout of a new species and
of gigantic size, perhaps, or a strange race of men. Whatever it was, I
believe I felt a bit disappointed.

I believe I did not consider it much of a discovery. It was a good deal
like other Nova Scotia lakes, except that it appeared to be in two
sections and pretty big for its name.