_From the Lady_ HELEN POLE _to the Countess of_ EDGE _and_ ROSS.
_Chipmunk Lake_,
August 19th
_Dearest Polly_:
It is eleven o’clock P. M., and I have been in bed and asleep since
half-after seven. I foresee myself wide-awake for two hours and giving
you an account of the last two days. How flat that sounds--but wait!
And otherwise you might never hear of them, for I return to Boulder
Lake to-morrow, and in this country events are so quickly crowded into
the past.
I wrote you--did I not?--that the subject of a camping expedition had
been mooted more than once, but put off from time to time on account
of threatening weather and various other causes. I longed to go;
“camping out” in the “Adirondack wilderness” being pitched upon a most
adventurous and romantic note; and finally I begged Mr. Nugent to
arrange it. He went “straight at it” in the energetic American way, and
in two hours it was all arranged: Opp drove out in the buckboard for
another guide, and Mrs. Opp was making so many good things at once
that all the other cooks had to come over to help her. Then Mr. Nugent
and Mr. Van Worden packed the big pack-baskets, and everybody was ready
to start at nine o’clock the day before yesterday.
The original plan was that all of us should go, but the actual party
were Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Jones, Miss Page, Myself, Mr. Nugent, Mr.
Latimer, and Mr. Van Worden. The others “backed out” on one excuse or
another, and happy it was for them and us that they did.
This colony is only two years old, and, as it happened, none of the men
ever had camped out in this part of the Adirondacks before, and as they
found their lake and surroundings quite sufficient there was not a tent
on the place. However--and the expedition was avowedly got up for my
benefit--I insisted that I wanted a genuine rough camping experience,
and we all took Opp’s word for it that he knew the very spot--where
there was fishing, a clearing, and an “open camp,” erected by other
wood-loving spirits. It is true he grinned as he assured me that I
would get a good taste of the “genuine article,” but I suspected
nothing. What imagination, indeed, would be equal to it!
Mrs. Coward kissed me good-bye quite affectionately, for she expected
to “go out” before I returned, and even Mrs. Earle stood on the shore
in the little spruce grove and waved her handkerchief with the others
as we rowed down the lake.
It was one of those crystal mornings when life seems the divine thing
of those imaginings of ours when we have lost for a little the links
that hold them to facts. I never felt happier, I was almost excited. It
seemed such a delightful thing to float off into the unknown like that,
to go in search of adventures, with the certainty that six strong men,
one of them your devoted slave, would take the best of care of you. It
was all so undiscovered--that rough mountain world beyond the lake--so
unimaginable--well, I know all about it now.
We were a very picturesque party, my dear. The men wore white sweaters,
corduroy breeches, and top boots. I wore hunter’s green, a short skirt
of covert cloth just above my boot tops, a linen blouse the same shade
and a little bolero to protect my back and arms from the mosquitoes.
Miss Page, who is very dark, wore a bright red skirt and cap and a
red and white striped “shirt waist” with a red tie. Mr. Nugent said
she looked exactly like a “stick of peppermint candy,” and I am sure
I shall recognise that indigestible the first time I enter a “candy
store.” Mrs. Meredith Jones, who has golden hair and blue eyes, wore
a dark blue skirt and cap and the inevitable “shirt waist”; but hers
was striped with blue; and the jauntiest little cape hung from her
shoulders. Of course we all wore canvas leggins as a further protection
from the mosquitoes, which are the least of Adirondack charms.
Well, the moment we stepped on shore our troubles began. We were landed
on to a big slippery stone, then handed across several others and a few
rotten logs into a swamp. Before us was an impenetrable thicket as high
as our heads and wet with dew. We stood staring at it until the guides
had shouldered their packs and picked their way over rocks and logs to
take the lead.
“That’s all right,” said Opp, “there ain’t bin any one in here for
two years and the road’s growed over, but it’ll be all right in about
a mile. Good trail then. We’ll go first and break the road. Wimmin
folks’d better bring up in the rear.”
So we started; crashing through the wet bushes over the wetter ground
until we came to a narrow rocky trail sidling along the inlet. This is
a gentle stream in a wild setting. Its rocks are so many and so big
that the wonder is the water can crawl over them, and the mountain
beside the path is as precipitous as a cliff. None of us paid much
attention to the beauties of Nature; we did not dare take our eyes
off the path, which had given way in places and was swampy in others.
Where it was safe it was rocky. Nor could the men help us much; the
trail was too narrow. Single file was a necessity, but Mr. Nugent was
just behind me and gave me occasional directions, besides surrounding
me, as usual, with an atmosphere of protection. So, slipping, and
bending and clutching at trees, we picked our way along until at last
the trail turned up hill, and if no less rough was free of the worst
element of danger. In another half hour we had passed a lumber camp
and were on a level trail along the crest of the mountain. The forest
was more open here, so much “lumbering” had been done, but only the
spruce were gone--not all of those--and high on one side and down in
a valley on the other was the beautiful leafy forest, full of the
resinous odor of spruce gum, the spaces rather a welcome change after
the forest densities of the last two months. And our procession was
very picturesque. The guides with their big pack-baskets strapped to
their shoulders were in the lead, almost trotting, that they might
outdistance us and have an occasional rest. All our men carried
small packs and strode along looking very supple and free, with the
exception of poor Mr. Van Worden who is rather stout and must have felt
the irksomeness of his pack. But he was enjoying himself, no doubt
of that; and indeed, so were we all. Mr. Latimer, who had looked a
little conscience-stricken as he said good-bye to Mrs. Van Worden,
whistled as gaily as a school-boy on a runaway lark. And it was so
cool and fresh in the woods, who wouldn’t be happy? Not that there was
one minute of easy walking--nor an opportunity for sentiment. When
we followed the narrow trail through the brush we had to stoop and
overlook every inch before we put a foot down. When we were on the long
stretches of corduroy, built by the lumbermen to haul their logs over,
Mr. Nugent held my hand, but he might have been his ghost for all the
impression he made on me, so many were the holes and so rotten some
of the logs. Conversation was impossible. We exchanged an occasional
remark, but we were all too intent on avoiding sprained ankles and
broken tendons--you cannot imagine the painfulness of walking too long
on log roads--to be interested in any one but ourselves.
There were four hours of this, and good a walker as I am I was
beginning to feel tired, when Opp, who had gone for ahead, came in
sight again, looking sheepish, rather.
“Be gosh!” he remarked to Mr. Van Worden as we met, “here’s a fine lay
out. One of the camps is burned. Them last campers done it, I reckon. I
seen ’em go round by way of Spruce Lake.”
I heard Mr. Van Worden swear softly under his breath, and saw an
expression of blank dismay on Mr. Nugent’s face. Mr. Latimer burst into
a peal of boyish laughter. But Mr. Meredith Jones said sharply,
“Well let’s go on and cook dinner. That is all that concerns us now. We
can decide what to do later.”
“Are we there?” I asked, hopefully, for I longed to give my poor
bruised feet a rest.
“Yes’m,” said Opp, “we’re there, all right.”
And in a moment, Polly, we “were there.”
Have you wasted any time, my dear, imagining what an “open camp” is
like? I hope not, for it were a waste of good mental energy. The
briefest description will fit it. Three sides and a sloping roof,
all of bark. The front “open” in the exactest interpretation of the
word. Inside--nothing. Twelve feet long and not quite the depth of Mr.
Meredith Jones, who is six feet two.
This mansion stood on the edge of a clearing, across which lay a big
felled tree. Against this we immediately all sat down in a row. Beyond
was a charred ruin and near the log a rude table. Does that sound
romantic? I wish you could have seen it. But we all laughed and were
happy, and we women, even then, did not realise the true inwardness of
the situation. The forest, the beautiful forest, rose on three sides
of us; beyond a stream, concealed by alders, was a high sharp ridge of
mountains; and we were hungry.
The guides immediately set about making a fire. There seemed to be
plenty of logs and they soon had a roaring blaze. Opp found a limb
with a forked top, which he drove into the ground just beyond the fire
and in the fork transfixed a long curving branch which held a pail of
water above the flames. Mr. Nugent and Mr. Van Worden unpacked the
baskets, Mr. Meredith Jones set the table, and Mr. Latimer fought off
the hornets which swarmed at the first breath of jam and ginger-nuts.
When we finally sat about that board, on logs or “any old thing,” we
eat that excellent luncheon of fried ham and hard boiled eggs, mutton
cutlets and fried potatoes, hot chocolate and cake, with a grateful
appetite, I can assure you. Mr. Van Worden fried the ham and potatoes
and made the chocolate, and we all coddled his culinary pride. All my
fatigue vanished, and Mrs. Meredith Jones looked equally fresh and
seemed prepared to take whatever might come, with the philosophy of
the other sex. But poor Miss Page looked rather knocked up. She has
never gone in for walking and her very cap had a dejected air; her fine
colour was almost gone, but she looked very pretty and pathetic and all
the men attempted to console her.
“I wouldn’t mind it,” she said with a sigh, “if we didn’t have to go
back.” Then, as if fearing to dampen our spirits with the prospect of
carrying her out, she added hopefully, “But it’ll be two days hence. I
reckon I’ll be all right by that time. I’ll just lie about and rest.”
When luncheon was over Mr. Latimer made her a comfortable couch of
shawls, with a small pack-basket for pillow, and she soon fell asleep.
The guides washed the dishes, then immediately felled two young
spruce-trees, and, with the help of Latimer and Mr. Meredith Jones,
shaved off the branches and covered the floor of the cabin. This was
our bed, my dear, and it was about a foot deep. When it was finished
they covered it with carriage robes, and all preparations for nightly
comforts were complete. By this time it had dawned on Mrs. Meredith
Jones and myself that we were _all_ going to sleep under that roof. Opp
had examined the sky and predicted rain before morning, and Miss Page
was not equal to a return journey--“doubling the road,” as they say
here--even if any of us had contemplated such a thing.
“Tom and I will sleep in the middle,” said Mrs. Meredith Jones
reassuringly to me, after an earnest conversation apart with her
husband, but I was immensely amused at the whole situation. We were
as helpless against certain circumstances as if we did not possess
sixpence between us; for it would have taken nearly a day to build
another camp and the guides were too tired to think of such a thing.
We were all stranded out in space, and there was nothing to do but make
the best of it.
About two hours after luncheon I felt as if I had had no exercise that
day and Opp suggested that I go up the mountain to see a gorge locally
famous. So, accompanied by Mr. N. and Latimer, I followed him up the
steepest and roughest mountain of my experience. There was no trail. He
trampled ahead through the brush and we followed. Mr. Nugent preceded
and literally pulled me up more than one perpendicular place, but Opp
insisted upon taking charge of me through the slippery intricacies
of a rocky stream. But we were rewarded by the most beautiful spot I
have yet seen. Imagine a forest glade with five or six _islands_ of
rock--boulders so huge that no other word will describe them. These
islands were covered on all sides with the richest moss and the most
delicate ferns, and on the top of each grew great trees, their long
roots gripping the sides of the rock like petrified pythons. Then a
water-course choked with smaller boulders, and rising out of it,
straight up for five hundred feet, a solid wall of rock crowned with a
pine forest. The wall was a half-mile long and so smooth that one could
well imagine some terrible convulsion of these Adirondacks during which
a mountain had been split in twain, one side grinding itself into these
boulder-islands of the forest. On high the tree-tops were so matted
that the glade was filled with a twilight almost green. One had the
impression of walking under the sea. Each of us selected a dry rock,
and we sat there for an hour telling mountain experiences. I had had
one or two in the Alps, extremely modest ones, but all the men looked
at me with intense admiration as I related them. American men seem
to have an almost passionate admiration for women of great physical
endurance and courage. Our men take it as a matter of course. Mr.
Nugent thought it the most charming thing in the world that I should
want “more exercise” after the heavy tramp of the morning. He said one
rather clever thing, by the way. The others, after a time, wandered
down to the foot of the palisade in search of the ice caves, and as
I rather feared that Mr. N., under the influence of the wild beauty
about us, might lose a self-control which is plainly manufactured and
maintained through a fear of losing everything, (I dread and almost
long for the time when it will give way altogether) I turned the
conversation to politics and asked him if he looked forward to the
possible Bryan administration with the great apprehension that other
Republicans seemed to feel.
“No; I can’t say I do,” he said. “Nothing is ever as bad in politics
as the anticipations; anticipations are the exaggerations of much
talk. Besides--it is quite on the cards that Bryan will be an arrant
snob before he has been a month in the White House. Likely as not,
his first taste of Society will induce conservatism. When he has sat
at table a few times with titled Ambassadors he will hasten to forget
the ridiculous little farm he bought to have his pictures taken in.
Then, the only thing left for us to do is to marry his daughter to a
gentleman and persuade him to send his son to Harvard. His reform will
be accomplished in less than a year. There is no snob so complete as
a democrat reformed by the right sort of visiting cards. Of course a
small nucleus, the old set of Washington, will not go near the White
House, and as soon as the Bryans discover that diplomats, senators,
cabinet officers and army people are not all the cream of high society
they will become downright aristocrats; and when the shirt-sleeved
voter from Lincoln, Nebraska, calls, will conceal their ennui and
irritation indifferently well. That means alienation of the sons of the
soil, and no second term for Bryan. If Washington is wise it will do
its best to make a fool of him.”
“You haven’t much faith in Mr. Bryan’s much vaunted sincerity,” I said
with a laugh.
“I haven’t a particle,” he said contemptuously. “He has his picture
taken too often.”
The others returned at this juncture and we set out upon the
difficulties of our homeward journey. But never mind, it was all very
delightful and I never shall forget the beauty of that rocky glade.
When we returned to the camp, we found Mrs. Meredith Jones asleep and
Miss Page keeping watch. The men had all gone fishing and Mr. Nugent
and Mr. Latimer hastened to join them. Miss Page looked refreshed but
turned to me a perturbed face.
“I cannot believe it is possible that we are all going to sleep in
there,” she said. “Why, it is shocking! I begged Mr. Van Worden to put
up a partition, but he says it is quite impossible, that there won’t be
room to turn over, as it is. I wish I hadn’t come. Suppose it should
get out? Why, people would be horrified.”
“Really,” I said, “I think you take an exaggerated view. We are all
going to bed with our clothes on, the camp is open, there are nine
of us, and our chaperons will sleep in the middle. We may not be
comfortable but I think the proprieties will take care of themselves.”
“I think it is shocking,” she said, “perfectly shocking. It seems so
coarse and horrid. I’ll remember it as long as I live.”
I felt like shaking her, but she looked so distressed that I said
soothingly: “Please don’t worry. I will sleep next to Mrs. Meredith
Jones and you can tuck away in the corner where no one can see you and
you will be quite forgotten.”
“Yes,” she replied quickly, “I insist upon having the corner--
particularly as you don’t mind,” she added apologetically. “You are
quite different from my idea of English girls. I should have thought
that you would be simply horrified.”
“Perhaps we are more matter-of-fact than you are,” I said drily. “Where
a thing can’t be helped it can’t, and we are sensible about it. Now, I
am surprised at you. I had always supposed that American girls----”
“Oh, don’t!” she exclaimed. “You are going to judge us all by those
horrid things you meet in Europe and in novels. I can assure you that
Southern girls--_gentlewomen_--are as particular as English girls--more
so, I reckon. Do you realise that we are going to sleep in the same
room with six men?”
“I don’t look at it in that way at all,” I said tartly. “And for
heaven’s sake make up your mind to the inevitable and think no more
about it.”
The men returned soon after with a basket full of trout and Mr. Van
Worden fried them for supper. I don’t think I ever eat anything quite
so good as those trout.
“He beats the cars, cookin’,” observed our chief guide, and Mr. Van
Worden looked as pleased as if he had made a million in Wall Street.
After supper the guides built a high fire of great logs, and we all sat
about and the men “spun yarns” of the days when the panther and the
bear roamed the woods, and finished with stories of the beautiful red
deer that alone claims the forest to-day. Of course the men smoked, and
we were all very happy and comfortable until we went to bed. Mr. N.
sat as close to me as he decently could, and--I will confess to you,
Polly--under the encouragement of the shadows which covered a part of
me and all of him he held my hand. I could not struggle--well----
About ten the men all marched up the hill in single file, singing, and
we had the camp to ourselves for a half hour. We took off our boots,
corsets and blouses, put on dressing sacks, tied our heads up in
silk handkerchiefs, and our night toilet was complete. Miss Page had
evidently made up her mind to accept the situation, but she was so
manifestly uncomfortable that I tied nearly all of her face up in her
handkerchief and tucked her away in the corner with the blanket up to
her nose. She turned her back upon us and regarded the chinks of the
bark wall in silent misery. Mr. Van Worden had brought three extra
pairs of socks and these he had directed us to pull over our stockings
as the night would grow very cold.
We had been in bed nearly twenty minutes and had already learned
something of its hardness when the men returned.
“Now,” said Opp, “you must all lie on the same side and when one of you
wants to turn over be sure to sing out and then we’ll all turn over
together.”
His was the only remark. The other men pulled off their boots and
crawled into bed without a word, looking rather sheepish, and
ostentatiously refraining from glancing in our direction. Men are
certainly more modest than women in certain conditions, and Mrs.
Meredith Jones and I almost laughed out loud, especially as the other
guide went to bed with his hat on!
For about a half hour we were as quiet as the sardines we must have
looked. Then my side--the one I was lying on--began to ache from my
neck to my heel, and from the numerous sighs and restless jerks I
inferred that we all were affected in the same way. At all events Opp
“sang out,” “Heave over, hey?” and we all turned like a well-regulated
machine. I whispered to Miss Page but she would not answer me.
It was just after that we became conscious that the temperature was
about ninety. The fire was not three feet in front of us and blazing
more violently every moment. I had been endeavouring to forget my
discomfort in watching the black masses of the tree-tops thrown by the
blaze into extraordinary relief against the dulled sky and tarnished
stars, when I heard Mr. Van Worden whisper fiercely,
“What in heaven’s name did you build that red hot fire for? It’s hot
enough for three camps and we won’t sleep a wink.”
Opp replied apologetically: “I thought it was goin’ to rain and it was
best to have things well het up, but I guess it haint. It’s hot and no
mistake.”
I saw Mr. Latimer fighting to get out of an extra sweater without
attracting attention, and I, by the same herculean efforts, managed to
reach down and get off my stockings and those socks. But still the heat
was insupportable and the bed grew harder every moment. Our pillows,
too, were logs under the spruce, and I am used to a baby pillow that I
double under my neck and face. How I longed for it!
Finally Latimer slipped out of bed and went over to the edge of the
clearing and lit his pipe. The guides followed immediately, then Mr.
Meredith Jones, and they sat along the log in dejected silence. Mrs.
Meredith Jones heaved a deep sigh. “I really can’t stand it, girls,”
she whispered; and followed her husband. Of course we went too, and Mr.
Van Worden was left alone.
For a half hour we sat about in an almost complete silence, waiting for
that wretched fire to burn down. Opp separated the logs, and finally,
as we were all too sleepy to hold our heads up, we crawled back to bed,
one by one, all except Mr. Latimer, who stretched out on the table, and
Mr. Nugent who made a bed for himself on the ground. That gave us a
trifle more room in the camp, and we could turn without “singing out.”
In a few minutes, hot as it still was, I fell asleep.
I suppose it was two hours later that I awoke. The fire had taken a
fresh start and was blazing more merrily than ever. I felt as if I
were in a Turkish bath, and as Miss Page was no longer in front of me
I inferred that she had been driven forth again. Then it occurred to
me that she would not have budged without Mrs. Meredith Jones, and I
turned about quite suddenly. Mrs. M. J. was not there! Nor Mr. M. J.
Nor the guides. Oh, Agatha! Agatha! I was alone in bed with Mr. Van
Worden.
The situation was humorous, but somewhat embarrassing. I hardly knew
whether to pretend sleep or not, for I did not feel like going out and
sitting on that log again. I could see the dark figures in various
dejected attitudes. Mrs. M. J. and Miss Page were sitting back to back
with their heads hanging, while Mr. M. J. stood with his hands in his
pockets glowering at the fire. Latimer was sitting on the table smoking
his pipe, and Mr. N. was digging his heels viciously into the earth. As
for the guides they lay flat in the distance, tired out, poor things.
Only Mr. Van Worden looked serene. He, too, lay on his back, his hands
clasped over the greater part of him. I supposed he was asleep, but he
remarked genially:
“Hot, isn’t it, Lady Helen? I’m afraid one camping experience will do
you for the rest of your natural life.”
I assured him that I never had been so much entertained, and we
conversed as naturally as if it had been noon-day until I was reminded
of the irregularities of the situation by a gasp from Miss Page. She
nudged Mrs. M. J., whispered hurriedly, and in another moment I was
chaperoned on either side.
It was at least another hour before the fire burned down and the
temperature cooled. Then the men crawled back to bed, one by one, and
in a few moments they were all sleeping--and as quietly as kittens. It
really was quite remarkable.
But one could not sleep long at a time on that bed, and once I was glad
to be awake. High up on the highest tree of the mountain a hoot owl
broke the petrified stillness of that lonely forest.
“Too wit, too wit, too wooo!” he called loudly, and then he added
with impatient emphasis, “Too wit, too wit, _too woo_,” as if to say,
“Do you understand that?” He was a bit of a scold, but he had all the
grey dome and all the forest depths to talk into. No comrade answered
him, and nothing ever gave me such an impression of the solitude of a
mountain forest.
By six o’clock we had endured all that the human frame is capable of
in the way of sleeping on hard and prickly spruce, and the men rose
as by one impulse and went down to the spring to wash. We dressed as
hurriedly as possible, and, I must say, looked surprisingly fresh. And
the morning was so deliciously cool, and Mr. Van Worden’s coffee so
fragrant and bracing, his trout so crisp and Mrs. Opp’s “johnnie cake,”
so excellent that we sat about Mr. Latimer’s bed in the highest spirits
and congratulated each other that we were “camping out.” Even Miss
Page, having weathered the worst of it, announced herself ready to stay
another night, and talked continually in her pretty Southern brogue.
She was looking like a beautiful gypsy, too, and I think our one small
mirror had consoled her for many things. She flashed her eyes about
with the impartiality of the kind-hearted coquette, and was quite the
life of the uncomfortable group about the table.
After breakfast Mrs. M. J., Latimer, Mr. Nugent and myself, led by Opp,
with an axe over his shoulder, started off to see some famous falls.
The rest went fishing. As the trail along the “still-water” had been
choked by lumbermen, Opp had to rely on his general knowledge of the
land, and every few minutes he “blazed” a tree, _i.e._, hacked off a
piece of the bark with his axe, that there should be no danger of going
astray when we returned. The ground was less broken up than usual and
we strode along in single file looking for all the world like a party
of pioneers penetrating the wilderness. It was a jolly experience and I
would not have missed it for anything.
The falls were about two miles from the camp and we were an hour
reaching them, for Opp got off the track several times. I can imagine
that they look very fine indeed when there is anything falling. But
all we saw was a sloping wall of solid rock, about four hundred and
fifty feet high and a fifth of a mile wide, crowned with spruce. There
is a deep wide pool below, and a mass of rocks on which we sat and
tried to picture the mighty cascade of other seasons. On one end--the
perpendicular end--of the wall there were soil and trees, and Opp asked
me if I would like to “climb the falls and see the sights.” I was half
way across the rocks in a moment with Mr. N. and Latimer after me,
while Opp remained with Mrs. M. J.
It was a straight climb, my dear, of four hundred and fifty feet. It
hardly sloped once and there was just one ledge of about six steps. We
had to pull ourselves up by trees and bushes, and more that once Mr.
N. dragged me up, while Mr. L. pushed me. But altogether I did rather
well, and was quite rewarded by their enthusiastic approval. But there
was a better reward than that. From an elevation above the falls we
saw five mountain ranges. They seemed to fill all space, and the blue
dome to press down its rim about them, holding such a flood of crystal
and gold! There were many beautiful pines about us, sage green with a
delicate fairy-like quality in spite of their greatness, and once more
the undesecrated forest, so dense that Mr. N. had noted every inch of
ground we traversed.
Of course it was worse going down than ascending and I was glad to have
two men to take care of me.
Well, we spent all of that day very pleasantly, and the night promised
to be rather more comfortable, for Mr. Nugent, Mr. Latimer, and the
guides all made beds for themselves under the stars and the fire was
left to go out after supper. But, alas! about midnight it began to
rain, they all came crawling under shelter, and there was little more
sleep that night.
The rain stopped long enough for us to breakfast comfortably, and
then we held a consultation. The plan had been to “stay out” three
nights, but we were all a little tired of it, and the skies looked very
forbidding.
“If you want my opinion,” remarked Opp, “I say go, and be quick about
it. It’s set in for all day, and if we git back to the Lake without a
soakin’ we’ll be luckier’n I think we will.”
That settled it. We had no desire to sit on our bed all day and then
sleep on it another night. The guides began to pack at once, and within
an hour we were on our way.
We had hardly started when it began to pour, and it has not stopped
yet. What a walk it was! However we reached home without pneumonia and
broken ankles heaven only knows, but not one of us has a cold; and
although my feet feel as if they had been pounded with a hammer they
are quite whole. When we were not picking our way over the narrow
trail through the brush--dripping and as high as our heads--we were
on those horrible corduroy roads, made so slippery by the rain that
every step was a danger. Once I fell, and I twisted my foot three times
and wrenched myself up to my waist. My feet were swimming in my boots
and it was an effort to lift them. I felt sorry for Miss Page, who is
a pampered creature, but she never uttered a complaint, although she
told me afterward that every time we came to one of those interminable
stretches of corduroy she wanted to sit down and cry. She certainly is
a fine creature, with all her little foibles.
When we got to the lumber camp we all sat down in the rain and rested
before climbing the corduroy hill beyond. Mr. N. explained to me the
use of the curious objects piled under a shed. They were huge boxes
on runners with four round holes in each end. When the snow is on the
ground, covering corduroy and rocks, these boxes are filled with water
and dragged by horses over the road to be used for drawing the lumber
to the streams. From the front holes the water spouts continuously,
and as it strikes the ground it freezes, making a solid smooth surface
over which the log sledges can travel with ease. But what a life! No
wonder these mountaineers look old; but Mr. N. told me that lumbermen
become so fascinated with the life that they cannot be tempted into the
valleys.
You can imagine the difficulties of that narrow sidling swampy trail by
the inlet. It was just twice as bad as in dry weather, and I almost was
discouraged once or twice. Perhaps I should have been, had it not been
for a very reassuring and helpful presence; but it was bad enough.
Latimer had hastened on to the lake to fire his revolver, the signal
that we were coming. When the rest of us arrived the boats were almost
there, but as we were all hot and wet, and a cold wind played upon us
as we stood on the stones again, it is a wonder we are not all wrecks.
As soon as I reached home Mrs. Van Worden made me drink hot whiskey,
while Mrs. Opp and Henriette undressed and rubbed me down. I am none
the worse for wear, but felt quite done up by half-after seven and went
to bed. Hence this great letter. Good night. I return to Boulder Lake
to-morrow.