At an early hour we reached the rock where we had parted with the guide, and looked around us into the dense, trackless woods with many misgivings.  To strike out now on our own hook, where the way was so blind and after the experience we had just had, was a step not to be carelessly taken.  The tops of these mountains are so broad, and a short distance in the woods seems so far, that one is by no means master of the situation after reaching the summit.  And then there are so many spurs and offshoots and changes of direction, added to the impossibility of making any generalization by the aid of the eye, that before one is aware of it he is very wide of his mark.

I remembered now that a young farmer of my acquaintance had told me how he had made a long day’s march through the heart of this region, without path or guide of any kind, and had hit his mark squarely.  He had been barkpeeling in Callikoon,—­a famous country for barkpeeling,—­and, having got enough of it, he desired to reach his home on Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous journey between the two places.  To do this necessitated a march of ten or twelve miles across several ranges of mountains and through an unbroken forest,—­a hazardous undertaking in which no one would join him.  Even the old hunters who were familiar with the ground dissuaded him and predicted the failure of his enterprise.  But having made up his mind, he possessed himself thoroughly of the topography of the country from the aforesaid hunters, shouldered his axe, and set out, holding a strait course through the woods, and turning aside for neither swamps, streams, nor mountains.  When he paused to rest he would mark some object ahead of him with his eye, in order that on getting up again, he might not deviate from his course.  His directors had told him of a hunter’s cabin about midway on his route, which if he struck he might be sure he was right.  About noon this cabin was reached, and at sunset he emerged at the head of Dry Brook.

After looking in vain for the line of marked trees, we moved off to the left in a doubtful, hesitating manner, keeping on the highest ground and blazing the trees as we went.  We were afraid to go downhill, lest we should descend to soon; our vantage-ground was high ground.  A thick fog coming on, we were more bewildered than ever.  Still we pressed forward, climbing up ledges and wading through ferns for about two hours, when we paused by a spring that issued from beneath an immense wall of rock that belted the highest part of the mountain.  There was quite a broad plateau here, and the birch wood was very dense, and the trees of unusual size.

After resting and exchanging opinions, we all concluded that is was best not to continue our search encumbered as we were; but we were not willing to abandon it altogether, and I proposed to my companions to leave them beside the spring with our traps, while I made one thorough and final effort to find the lake.  If I succeeded and desired them to come forward, I was to fire my gun three times; if I failed and wished to return, I would fire twice, they of course responding.