The pine tracts ascertained, the quality of the trees examined, the distance the timber will have to be hauled duly calculated, and the ground inspected, through which logging roads must be cut, the exploring party retrace their steps to the place where they left their boat. Foot-sore with their forest roamings, they gladly look forward to the quick, gliding passage down stream. A grievous disappointment sometimes awaits them. In the fall of the year, the black bear is seized with a violent longing for pitch and resinous substances, and frequently strips fir trees of their bark for the sake of the exudations. Occasionally he stumbles over a timber-hunter's _bateau_, and tears it to pieces in the course of the rough process he employs to extract the tar from its planks. If it is injured beyond possibility of repair, the unlucky pioneers have to perform their homeward journey on foot, unless indeed they are so fortunate as to fall in with some Indian trapper, whose canoe they can charter for a portion of the way. Once at home, the next step is to obtain permits from the State or proprietors, securing, at a stipulated price of so much per thousand feet, the exclusive right to cut timber within certain bounds. Then comes haymaking--a most important part of the loggers' duty; for on nothing does the success of the wood-cutting campaign depend more than on the good working condition of the sturdy teams of oxen which drag the logs from the snow-covered forest to the river's brink. Hard by the forest extensive strips of meadow-land are commonly found, covered with a heavy growth of grass, and thither large bands of men repair to make and stalk the hay for the ensuing winter's consumption. The labour of haymaking in these upland meadows of Maine is rendered intolerably painful by the assaults of flies and mosquitoes, and especially by the insidious attacks of millions of midges, so small as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and which get between the clothes and the skin, causing a smarting and irritation so great as to impede the progress of the work. The torment of these insect attacks is hardly compensated by the pastimes and adventures incidental to the occupation. Now and then a shot is to be had at a stray deer; the streams swarm with beautiful trout and pickerel; skirmishes with black bears are of frequent occurrence. Mr Springer's volume abounds with stories of encounters with bears, wolves, and "Indian devils"--a formidable species of catamount, of which the Indians stand in particular dread. Although the bear rarely shows himself pugnacious unless assailed, his meddlesome, thievish propensities render him particularly obnoxious to the hay-makers and wood-cutters; and when they meet him, they never can abstain from the aggressive, however civilly Bruin may be disposed to pass them by.