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.”