“Then we had better be jogging on.  It’ll be dark before we know it.”

“All right,” returned Charley, “but I’m going to get a drink before I go any farther.”

“I want one, too.  Guess I’ll fill the canteen.  Then we won’t have to, stop every time we want a drink.”

The two boys scrambled down the slope to the brook.  The lumber trail was near the bottom of the notch and they had only a few yards to go.  The little run was rushing tumultuously down the notch, splashing over rocks, scurrying over little sandy stretches, ever singing, ever murmuring, in its downward course.  Their packs and blankets made it difficult to stretch out flat and drink from the stream, so Lew rinsed out the canteen, filled it, and handed it to his companion.  Charley took a good drink and passed the canteen silently back to his chum.

“If you didn’t really know it was the brook,” said Lew, “you’d be willing to swear you could hear somebody talking.  You can hear voices just as plain as can be.  And you can almost make out what they say.  Many a time I’ve caught myself listening hard to try to make out the words, when I heard a brook talking.”

“It’s no wonder people get scared and pretty nearly go crazy when they are lost in the forest,” replied Lew.  “Without half trying, you can imagine the forest is full of people or spooks or animals or something, creeping up behind your back.”

Lew bent down and once more filled the canteen.  He corked it tight and dipped it bodily into the run to wet the cloth cover, so that the water within would be kept cool by evaporation.  Then he slung the canteen over his shoulder.

“I never saw a mountain stream so low at this time of the year,” he remarked, as he followed his companion up the trail.  “You might think it was August.  But with no snow to melt and no rainfall this spring, it isn’t to be wondered at.”

On they went up the trail.  For a long time neither boy spoke.  The brambles still tore at their clothes and the bushes tripped them.  In places the young saplings were so dense that to force a way among them was a difficult task.  Their packs began to grow very heavy.  But they had one advantage.  As Charley had suggested, the ground was perfectly dry.  There were no slippery sticks to tread on, nor any moss-covered stones, treacherous with their soggy coats.  So they could give more attention to the obstacles above ground.  But at best it was a hard, difficult climb.

As they mounted higher and higher, the stream in the bottom constantly dwindled.  Long before the crest was reached, the brook had become a very feeble stream, indeed.  It had its source near the top of the pass, in a great spring that welled up under a large rock.  A single hemlock had sprung up here in years past, and, watered by the spring, had grown to enormous size.  For some reason the lumbermen had passed it by.  Now it reared its giant bulk high above the younger growths around it, casting a dense shade over the spring basin.  Practically nothing grew in this deep shade, so that the space above the spring was open and free from bushes.  On the trunk of this giant hemlock, where it could be seen by all who came to the spring, was a white sign that read: