Supper over, the sun had set, and the only work that remained for the twilight was the gathering of the fuel to feed the fires during the coming night.
Daylight faded away, the moon rose, and the gay chat by the fireside being exhausted, a silence, profound, and unbroken save by the crackling flames, fell upon the quiet, gray old forest. By and by the fire died down, and not a single sound could be heard, not the rustle of a bough, the tinkling of the stream, or the stirring of any forest creature. The moon sailed over the treetops, and a ghostly dreaminess lulled every sense, not to sleep, but to languid repose. Fatigue, thus far, there had been none, but physical and mental excitement plenty, and hence the writer's sleep during her first night of camping out lasted about one half hour. She watched the careful guides, how each one rose once during the short night to feed the fires, the elder one alert, the two younger drowsy and but half awake; her mind wandered with Humboldt and Bonpland to South America, with Dr. Kane to the Arctic zone, with Winthrop over the Rocky Mountains, with Dr. Livingstone to Central Africa, and with Father Huc to Tartary and Thibet. The busy, confined life of a city seemed an absurdity, the woods the only rational place for human beings to dwell in, and spruce boughs the only bed suitable to the dignity of mankind.
Morning broke, and with the dawn the guides were up preparing breakfast. Bill of fare: Salt pork, first parboiled to extract the brine, then drained off and fried crisp, bread and butter, toast, crackers, and tea, with maple sugar, but without milk. Our little tin pail served alike to draw water, boil hasty pudding, and make tea. But although the day had dawned and the sun risen, the light was feeble, and the elder guide shook his head ominously.
'Indeed,' said he, 'it won't be much use to go on up, for the Haystack looks so blue that durn'd haze must have come back again, and you'll have no view from Mercy to-day.'
'Well, it can't be helped, but we'll try it anyhow!' was the unanimous response.
We were a mile and a half from the top of Tahawus, having already entered the great belt of spruce encircling the middle regions of the mountain, and having left behind all deciduous trees except a few birches. The forest here is especially grand, the original wood still remaining, tall, wide of girth, dark, and sturdy. The girdled trees standing near our camp looked at us reproachfully in the morning light; ten giants doomed to death to furnish a night's covering to six pigmies! Our fires, too, were they safe, or might they not run along the inflammable turf and perhaps destroy acres of beautiful, precious timber?
But time pressed, 'the dishes were washed,' and we must away. All the heavy articles were left in the camp, and nothing taken up with us except a light lunch, a canteen of water, and the shawls needed to protect against the winds on the top. The little stream crossed, the ascent began quite steeply. A half mile of walking brought us out of the wood, and to the foot of the great slide, a bare, sloping rock, some thousand feet in height. Up this slide, either on the rock, or beside it, through the bushes and the spruce trees, which soon become low and shrubby, leads the pathway, not difficult, but somewhat fatiguing, from its steepness. Indeed, the whole way up is so excellent one wonders so high a mountain can be ascended with so little exertion or actual climbing. In places, the moss is some, six inches thick, and the feet, worn with stony ways, sink into it as if there to find lasting repose; but Excelsior is the cry, and the top of the slide the next goal to be won.
Meantime the haze had been turning into mist, and great clouds were gathering on the bare, rocky head of the mountain. The slide passed, the path winds through dense, low spruce growth, and, the last steep cliffs gradually overcome, the extreme limit of tree vegetation (four thousand eight hundred feet) is passed, and the remaining rocky slope offers no growth except a few hardy plants, such as sandwort, grasses, and several varieties of moss and lichen.
The summit is broad, and, although in part composed of broken rocks, is quite compact in structure. Its general form is rounded and dome-like.
But the view?