old philosopher, enfeebled by excessive exertion and illness, would collapse in a heap on the ground, an almost comical picture of despair, while we stood and waited the waning of the day, and peered forward in vain for any sign of an open country. At every brook we encountered, we suggested a hale for the night, while it was still light enough to select a camping-place, but the plucky old man would n’t hear of it: the trail might be only a quarter of a mile ahead, and we crawled on again at a snail’s pace. His honor as a guide seemed to be at stake; and, besides, he confessed to a notion that his end was near, and he did n’t want to die like a dog in the woods. And yet, if this was his last journey, it seemed not an inappropriate ending for the old woodsman to lie down and give up the ghost in the midst of the untamed forest and the solemn silences he felt most at home in. There is a popular theory, held by civilians, that a soldier likes to die in battle. I suppose it is as true that a woodsman would like to “pass in his chips,”—the figure seems to be inevitable,—struck down by illness and exposure, in the forest solitude, with heaven in sight and a tree-root for his pillow.
The guide seemed really to fear that, if we did not get out of the woods that night, he would never go out; and, yielding to his dogged resolution, we kept on in search of the trail, although the gathering of dusk over the ground warned us that we might easily cross the trail without recognizing it. We were travelling by the light in the upper sky, and by the forms of the tree-stems, which every moment grew dimmer. At last the end came. We had just felt our way over what seemed to be a little run of water, when the old man sunk down, remarking, “I might as well die here as anywhere,” and was silent.
