k-boughs, talking, after supper.
In front of us was a huge fire of birchlogs; and over it we could see
the top of the falls glistening in the moonlight; and the roar of the
falls, and the brawling of the stream near us, filled all the ancient
woods. It was a scene upon which one would think no thought of sin
could enter. We were talking with old Phelps, the guide. Old Phelps
is at once guide, philosopher, and friend. He knows the woods and
streams and mountains, and their savage inhabitants, as well as we
know all our rich relations and what they are doing; and in lonely
bear-hunts and sable-trappings he has thought out and solved most of
the problems of life. As he stands in his wood-gear, he is as
grizzly as an old cedar-tree; and he speaks in a high falsetto voice,
which would be invaluable to a boatswain in a storm at sea.

We had been talking of all subjects about which rational men are
interested,--bears, panthers, trapping, the habits of trout, the
tariff, the internal revenue (to wit the injustice of laying such a
tax on tobacco, and none on dogs:--"There ain't no dog in the United
States," says the guide, at the top of his voice, "that earns his
living"), the Adventists, the Gorner Grat, Horace Greeley, religion,
the propagation of seeds in the wilderness (as, for instance, where
were the seeds lying for ages that spring up into certain plants and
flowers as soon as a spot is cleared anywhere in the most remote
forest; and why does a growth of oak-trees always come up after a
growth of pine has been removed?)--in short, we had pretty nearly
reached a solution of many mysteries, when Phelps suddenly exclaimed
with uncommon energy,--

"Wall, there's one thing that beats me!"

"What's that?" we asked with undisguised curiosity.

"That's 'pusley'!" he replied, in the tone of a man who has come to
one door in life which is hopelessly shut, and from which he retires
in despair.

"Where it comes from I don't know, nor what to do with it. It's in
my garden; and I can't get rid of it. It beats me."

About "pusley" the guide had no theory and no hope. A feeling of awe
came over me, as we lay there at midnight, hushed by the sound of the
stream and the rising wind in the spruce-tops. Then man can go
nowhere that "pusley" will not attend him. Though he camp on the
Upper Au Sable, or penetrate the forest where rolls the Allegash, and
hear no sound save his own allegations, he will not escape it. It
has entered the h