Little Rivers [19]
to look at it, and then
sends the boat darting in that direction with long, swift strokes.
It is a moment of pleasant excitement, and we begin to conjecture
whether the deer is a buck or a doe, and whose hounds have driven
it in. But when Hose turns to look again, he slackens his stroke,
and says: "I guess we needn't to hurry; he won't get away. It's
astonishin' what a lot of fun a man can get in the course of a
natural life a-chasm' chumps of wood."
We landed on a sand beach at the mouth of a little stream, where a
blazed tree marked the beginning of the Ampersand trail. This line
through the forest was made years ago by that ardent sportsman and
lover of the Adirondacks, Dr. W. W. Ely, of Rochester. Since that
time it has been shortened and improved a little by other
travellers, and also not a little blocked and confused by the
lumbermen and the course of Nature. For when the lumbermen go into
the woods, they cut roads in every direction, leading nowhither,
and the unwary wanderer is thereby led aside from the right way,
and entangled in the undergrowth. And as for Nature, she is
entirely opposed to continuance of paths through her forest. She
covers them with fallen leaves, and hides them with thick bushes.
She drops great trees across them, and blots then out with
windfalls. But the blazed line--a succession of broad axe-marks on
the trunks of the trees, just high enough to catch the eye on a
level--cannot be so easily obliterated, and this, after all, is the
safest guide through the woods.
Our trail led us at first through a natural meadow, overgrown with
waist-high grass, and very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted
also was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle dalliance or
unwary digression, for the sting of the hornet is one of the
saddest and most humiliating surprises of this mortal life.
Then through a tangle of old wood-roads my guide led me safely, and
we struck one of the long ridges which slope gently from the lake
to the base of the mountain. Here walking was comparatively easy,
for in the hard-wood timber there is little underbrush. The
massive trunks seemed like pillars set to uphold the level roof of
green. Great yellow birches, shaggy with age, stretched their
knotted arms high above us; sugar-maples stood up straight and
proud under their leafy crowns; and smooth beeches--the most
polished and parklike of all the forest trees--offered
opportunities for the carving of lovers' names in a place where few
lovers ever come.
The woods were quiet. It seemed as if all living creatures had
deserted them. Indeed, if you have spent much time in our Northern
forests, you must have often wondered at the sparseness of life,
and felt a sense of pity for the apparent loneliness of the
squirrel that chatters at you as you pass, or the little bird that
hops noiselessly about in the thickets. The midsummer noontide is
an especially silent time. The deer are asleep in some wild
meadow. The partridge has gathered her brood for their midday nap.
The squirrels are perhaps counting over their store of nuts in a
hollow tree, and the hermit-thrush spares his voice until evening.
The woods are close--not cool and fragrant as the foolish romances
describe them--but warm and still; for the breeze which sweeps
across the hilltop and ruffles the lake does not penetrate into
these shady recesses, and therefore all the inhabitants take the
noontide as their hour of rest. Only the big woodpecker--he of the
scarlet head and mighty bill--is indefatigable, and somewhere
unseen is "tapping the hollow beech-tree," while a wakeful little
bird,--I guess it is the black-throated green warbler,--prolongs
his dreamy, listless ditty,--'te-de-terit-sca,--'te-de-us--wait.
After about an hour of easy walking, our trail began to ascend more
sharply. We passed over the shoulder of a ridge and around the
edge of a fire-slash,
sends the boat darting in that direction with long, swift strokes.
It is a moment of pleasant excitement, and we begin to conjecture
whether the deer is a buck or a doe, and whose hounds have driven
it in. But when Hose turns to look again, he slackens his stroke,
and says: "I guess we needn't to hurry; he won't get away. It's
astonishin' what a lot of fun a man can get in the course of a
natural life a-chasm' chumps of wood."
We landed on a sand beach at the mouth of a little stream, where a
blazed tree marked the beginning of the Ampersand trail. This line
through the forest was made years ago by that ardent sportsman and
lover of the Adirondacks, Dr. W. W. Ely, of Rochester. Since that
time it has been shortened and improved a little by other
travellers, and also not a little blocked and confused by the
lumbermen and the course of Nature. For when the lumbermen go into
the woods, they cut roads in every direction, leading nowhither,
and the unwary wanderer is thereby led aside from the right way,
and entangled in the undergrowth. And as for Nature, she is
entirely opposed to continuance of paths through her forest. She
covers them with fallen leaves, and hides them with thick bushes.
She drops great trees across them, and blots then out with
windfalls. But the blazed line--a succession of broad axe-marks on
the trunks of the trees, just high enough to catch the eye on a
level--cannot be so easily obliterated, and this, after all, is the
safest guide through the woods.
Our trail led us at first through a natural meadow, overgrown with
waist-high grass, and very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted
also was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle dalliance or
unwary digression, for the sting of the hornet is one of the
saddest and most humiliating surprises of this mortal life.
Then through a tangle of old wood-roads my guide led me safely, and
we struck one of the long ridges which slope gently from the lake
to the base of the mountain. Here walking was comparatively easy,
for in the hard-wood timber there is little underbrush. The
massive trunks seemed like pillars set to uphold the level roof of
green. Great yellow birches, shaggy with age, stretched their
knotted arms high above us; sugar-maples stood up straight and
proud under their leafy crowns; and smooth beeches--the most
polished and parklike of all the forest trees--offered
opportunities for the carving of lovers' names in a place where few
lovers ever come.
The woods were quiet. It seemed as if all living creatures had
deserted them. Indeed, if you have spent much time in our Northern
forests, you must have often wondered at the sparseness of life,
and felt a sense of pity for the apparent loneliness of the
squirrel that chatters at you as you pass, or the little bird that
hops noiselessly about in the thickets. The midsummer noontide is
an especially silent time. The deer are asleep in some wild
meadow. The partridge has gathered her brood for their midday nap.
The squirrels are perhaps counting over their store of nuts in a
hollow tree, and the hermit-thrush spares his voice until evening.
The woods are close--not cool and fragrant as the foolish romances
describe them--but warm and still; for the breeze which sweeps
across the hilltop and ruffles the lake does not penetrate into
these shady recesses, and therefore all the inhabitants take the
noontide as their hour of rest. Only the big woodpecker--he of the
scarlet head and mighty bill--is indefatigable, and somewhere
unseen is "tapping the hollow beech-tree," while a wakeful little
bird,--I guess it is the black-throated green warbler,--prolongs
his dreamy, listless ditty,--'te-de-terit-sca,--'te-de-us--wait.
After about an hour of easy walking, our trail began to ascend more
sharply. We passed over the shoulder of a ridge and around the
edge of a fire-slash,