Page:Life in the Open Air.djvu/48

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from its neighbor. There is buried one Melattach, an Indian chief. Of course there has been found in Maine some one irreverent enough to trot a lame Pegasus over this grave, and accuse the frowzy old red-skin of Christian virtues and delicate romance.

There were no portages this afternoon. We took the three lakes at easy speed, persuading ourselves that scenes fog would not let us see were unscenic. It is well that a man should think what he cannot get unworthy of his getting. As evening came, the sun made another effort, with the aid of west winds, at the mist. The sun cleft, the breeze drove. Suddenly the battle was done, victory easily gained. We were cheered by a gush of level sunlight. Even the dull, gray vapor became a transfigured and beautiful essence. Dull and uniform it had hung over the land; now the plastic winds quarried it, and shaped the whole mass into individuals, each with its character. To the cloud-forms modelled out of formlessness the winds gave life of motion, sunshine gave life of light, and they hastened through the lower atmosphere, or sailed lingering across the blue breadths of mid-heaven, or dwelt peacefully aloft in the region of the cirri; and whether trailing gauzy robes in flight, or moving stately, or dwelling on high where scope of vision makes travel needless, they were still the brightest, the gracefullest, the purest beings that Earth creates for man’s most delicate pleasure.

When it cleared, — when it purveyed us a broadening