The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: raised by the heavy rains and the operations of the lumbermen, was
several feet above its usual level. Nature's landing-places were
all blotted out, and we had to explore halfway around the shore
before we could get out comfortably. We raised the tents on a
small shoulder of a hill, a few rods above the water; and a
glorious camp-fire of birch logs soon made us forget our misery as
though it had not been.
The name of the Lake of the Beautiful Trout made us desire to visit
it. The portage was said to be only fifty acres long (the arpent
is the popular measure of distance here), but it passed over a
ridge of newly burned land, and was so entangled with ruined woods
|