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HistoryHad they but crossed this little stream and pushed boldly toward the northwest, they would have caught the broad, crinkly gleam of Lake Megantic after half an hour of comfortable walking. But the guide sent them by Arnold was not well posted, and Greene, who led the march with a compass, had no clue except Montresor s map, here fatally defective. He dared not leave the water, for he naturally thought the water could be depended upon to bring them somewhere ; and so they kept on over a continual succession of ridges and mountains, interspersed with morasses, vainly fol lowing the wavy shore of Spider Lake in and out, in and out ; for no spider has more legs than this lake has bays. At night, officers and men alike felt thoroughly ex hausted and absolutely lost. Where they were, where the rest were, where Lake Megantic or the Chau- diere River could be found, nobody had the faintest idea, no more, one of them expressed it, than if they had been roaming in the unknown interiors of Africa, or the deserts of Arabia. prev next |