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Rising, he observed the tree that he might make no mistake, and returning to the face of the rock strode twenty of his best paces in the direction of the tree. Again he was disappointed. There was no hackmatack tree at the end of his line. "Maybe he was a big man that does the pacin' and takes longer paces," he said to himself. "I'll go a bit farther."
He returned to the little hackmatack tree and again consulted the paper. "Forty paces west to a round rock," he read, observing, "that won't be so hard now as findin' the hackmatack tree. 'Twill be easier to see, whatever." Methodically he gathered some stones and erected a small pedestal upon which to rest his compass while he ran his westerly line. Loose stones of proper size were hard to find.
Croix on the north, and the two branches of the Machias or Kowahshiscook on the east; to say nothing of the Westogus and the Hackmatack and the Mopang. Here were names to stir the fancy and paralyze the tongue. What a joy to follow one of these streams clear through its course and come out of the woods in our own craft from Nicatöus to the sea!
So Master Langdon walked on toward his school-house, not displeased, perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for he was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many a smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who try to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the more formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies, considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and sashes of the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers."
He dropped his unwieldy musket, and clambered into a blackened and branchy hackmatack, so small that he feared the rush of the bull might break it down. It did, indeed, crack ominously when the headlong bulk reared upon it; but it stood. And Sandy felt as if every branch he grasped were an eggshell.
The meadows were richer and more glorious in their thick 'fall feed' than Queen Anne's Garden, as I saw it from the windows of Windsor Castle. And the dark hemlock and hackmatack woods were yet darker after the wet season, as they lay, in a hundred wildernesses, in the mighty recesses of the mountains.
The meadows were richer and more glorious in their thick 'fall feed' than Queen Anne's Garden, as I saw it from the windows of Windsor Castle. And the dark hemlock and hackmatack woods were yet darker after the wet season, as they lay, in a hundred wildernesses, in the mighty recesses of the mountains.
It brought him not to a hackmatack tree, but to the middle of several spruce trees. He returned to the rock and tried again. This time he was led to a tangle of brush to the left of the spruce trees into which his former effort had taken him. He was vastly puzzled. "'Tis something I does wrong," he mused. "Doctor Joe were sayin' the compass points right, and she is right.
"That must be he, now!" he exclaimed. "'Tis the only hackmatack I sees hereabouts. 'Tis sure he! I'll pace un back to the rock! If the tree's nuth'ard from the rock, the rock'll be south'ard from the tree. I'll try pacin' that way."
Charley wondered how it was possible for him to remember where he had left them, and asked: "How do you ever find the traps where you left them? The places all look alike to me." "Why, 'tis easy enough, lad. This bunch I hangs in the only hackmatack tree handy about. I just looks up and sees the tree, and there I finds the traps just where I leaves un."
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