I passed a very happy summer, enjoying my work and wandering in the forest or exploring the streams which flowed into the lake, for subjects.  The pure air and the tranquillity of the life, as well as its simplicity, and a certain amount of boating exercise which I went through every day in going to my subject, brought me to the highest point of physical health I had ever known.

The great danger to the uninitiated in the forest life is that of getting lost in this wild maze of trees, with no kind of landmark to serve as a clue.  Not a few rash beginners have become bewildered, lost all conception of their whereabouts, and perished of starvation within a short walk of a place of refuge.  The houses there were invariably built by the waterways, and the lines of communication were by water, so that there was no necessity for roads.  One finds the “runways” or paths made by the deer traversing the woods in every direction,—­a perfect labyrinth of byways, ending nowhere and often bringing the incautious wanderer, who supposes them to be paths, back to his starting-place, with the result that he is at once bewildered beyond recovery.

Years before, during one of my college vacations, I had made a fishing excursion to the northern edge of the great woods, in company with a classmate to the manner born, and had learned the need in my excursions of precautions against the bewilderment which follows the loss of one’s sense of direction.  He told me of one of the inexperienced assistants of a surveying party of which he was a member, engaged in running a township line in the trackless forest, who ventured to leave the line a few minutes, and, before he could recover it, though only a short distance from his party, had become quite insane, and could only be compelled to return with his companions by force.  An artist friend who had sketched on the southern border of the Wilderness told me of a similar experience of an English shoemaker who came to settle in a village on the southern edge of the woods, and who, after a short residence, went out to fish in a stream not far from home.  He did not return, and, though protracted search was made for him, no trace of him, nor even of his clothing, was ever discovered, except that a resident in a neighboring village said that, a day or two after the stranger had disappeared, a man answering to the description came to his door, his clothes in tatters, and, in a wild and incoherent manner, asked the way to the village from which he had gone, but, before any reply could be made, started off running and disappeared in the woods again.  He had contracted the woods madness and so perished.

Of this danger I was well informed, and, beside, I was more or less a child of the woodlands, and had no apprehension of it, having, moreover, an implicit faith in what I considered a kind of spiritual guidance in all I did,—­a delusion which at least served to keep me in absolute self-control under all circumstances.  It was probably this which kept me during my wanderings from falling into the panic which constituted the real danger, depriving the victim temporarily of the use of his reasoning powers.  I had, however, an interesting experience which gave me a clearer comprehension of the phenomenon, which is a very curious one.