“You ver’ brave boys, but you no stay dar long. You see heem ghost you come away ver’ queek, oui.”
After another hour’s ride through the deep forest broken only by two summer camps they reached the huge Ripogenus Dam, a mighty structure of cement, the third largest in the United States, also built by The Great Northern Paper Company. The dam, at the foot of Chesuncook Lake, 308 feet long and 78 feet high, is so wide that three automobiles can be driven abreast across it. At one end is a chute down which the logs are sluiced in the spring following the winter’s cut.
It was not their first visit to the dam, but they never tired of gazing down into the deep gorge where now only a small stream of water leaped from rock to rock.
In the distance, but seemingly so near that it appeared to be guarding the entrance to the gorge, rose Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in the state, its sides heavily wooded almost to the top.
“This is almost as grand a view as that other one,” Bob declared as he leaned his wheel against the wall of the dam.
“In a way it’s greater,” Jack insisted and Bob did not dispute him.
“Do you know how far it is to Katahdin?” Jack asked.
“A little over seven miles, I believe.”
“It doesn’t look more than a mile at the most.”
“Distances are very deceptive in this clear air,” Bob told him.