I expected an hour’s walk would bring me to the lakes, but the sun being in the zenith, and my way lying through a dense forest of pine, I could not keep a straight course.  I proceeded onward, however, as well as reason could direct me, and most willingly would I have exchanged a little of that faculty for the instinct that leads the brute creation with unerring certainty through the pathless depths of the forest.

The sun was rapidly declining, and my hopes with it, when suddenly I fancied I heard the murmuring sound of running water.  Could it be really so?  What a delightful feast I should have! for I had passed the day, like the preceding, without a drop of water to allay my raging thirst.  I listened; the sound became more distinct—­it was no illusion.  I quickened my pace, and soon came upon a charming rivulet, flowing rapidly over a bed of white pebbles, its water clear as crystal.  I rushed into the midst of it, and fervently thanking the Giver of all good, threw myself on my knees, and drank draught after draught till my thirst was quenched.  I felt refreshed to an extraordinary degree, and concluding that the stream would lead me to the river, or to some lake communicating with it, I followed its course, wading in the water that there might be “no mistake,” and soon came out on the border of a small lake, where I had the additional satisfaction of hearing the report of guns so distinctly as to convince me that the party firing them could be at no great distance.  I walked round the lake, and at its far end fell on a portage path that soon conducted me to another lake.  This, then, must be the chain of lakes I was in search of!  I was transported at the thought.

But an incident soon occurred that served to damp at once my spirits and my person:  a distant peal of thunder was heard; peal after peal succeeded; the heavens were obscured, and heavy drops of rain, the harbingers of an approaching storm, fell from the dark clouds.  I strained every nerve to reach the firing party ere the storm should burst upon me.  I reached the foot of the hill, but the firing had ceased.  I nevertheless ascended as quickly as my wearied limbs would carry me, but on reaching the spot found no one there.

The storm now burst upon me in all its fury.  Flash followed flash in quick succession, and the rain fell in torrents, which, however, as the few clothes that still adhered to my person were already saturated by the previous rain, caused me but little additional inconvenience.  I descended to the lake, and by the time I reached the far end of it the darkness had increased so much, that I could proceed no farther.  Perceiving an old encampment—­a few half-decayed branches of balsam, at the foot of a large hemlock—­I took up my quarters there for the night.  The tufted branches of this tree render it a much more secure retreat in a thunder-storm than the pine, whose pointed branches and spiral shaped top frequently attract the electric fluid.