Page:A-Hunting of Deer-1906.djvu/80

70 was through the Gill-Brook woods and up one of its branches to the head of Caribou Pass, which separates Nipple-Top from Colvin.

It was about the first of September; no rain had fallen for several weeks, and this heart of the forest was as dry as tinder; a lighted match dropped any. where would start a conflagration. This dryness has its advantages: the walking is improved; the long heat has expressed all the spicy odors of the cedars and balsams, and the woods are filled with a soothing fragrance; the waters of the streams, though scant and clear, are cold as ice; the common forest chill is gone from the air. The afternoon was bright; there was a feeling of exultation and adventure in stepping off into the open but pathless forest; the great stems of deciduous trees were mottled with patches of sunlight, which brought out upon the variegated barks and mosses of the old trunks a thousand shifting hues. There is nothing like a primeval wood for color on a sunny day. The shades of green and brown are infinite; the dull red of the hemlock bark glows in the sun, the russet of the changing moose-bush becomes brilliant; there are silvery openings here and there; and everywhere the columns rise up to the canopy of tender green which supports the intense blue sky and holds up a part of it from falling through in fragments to the floor of the forest. Decorators can learn here how Nature dares to put blue and green in juxtaposition: she has evidently the secret of harmonizing all the colors.

The way, as we ascended, was not all through open woods; dense masses of firs were encountered, jagged spurs were to be crossed, and the going became at length so slow and toilsome that we took to the rocky