CHAPTER X.
RIPOGENUS.
Ripogenus is a tarn, a lovely oval tarn, within a rim of forest and hill; and there behold, O gioja! at its eastern end, stooping forward and filling the sphere, was Katahdin, large and alone.
But we must hasten, for day wanes, and we must see and sketch this cloudless summit from terra firma, A mile and half-way down the lake, we landed at the foot of a grassy hill-side, where once had been a lumberman’s station and hay-farm. It was abandoned now, and lonely in that deeper sense in which widowhood is lonelier than celibacy, a home deserted lonelier than a desert. Tumble-down was the never-painted house; ditto its three barns. But, besides a camp, there were two things to be had here, — one certain, one possible, probable even. The view, that was an inevitable certainty; Iglesias would bag that as his share of the plunder of Ripogenus. For my bagging, bears, perchance, awaited. The trappers had seen a bear near the barns. Cancut, in his previous visit, had seen a disappearance of bear. No sooner had the birch’s bow touched lightly upon the shore than we seized our respective weapons, — Iglesias his peaceful and creative sketch-book, I my warlike and destructive gun, — and dashed up the hill-side.
I made for the barns to catch Bruin napping or
