The forenoon was not without its tragedy, nevertheless. As I came out into the open, on my return from the river woods toward the Bethlehem road, a carriage stopped across the field; a man jumped out, gun in hand, ran up to an unoccupied house standing there by itself, with a tract of low meadow behind it, peeped cautiously round the corner, lifted his gun, leveled it upon something with the quickness of a practiced marksman, and fired. Then down the grassy slope he went on the run out of sight, and in a minute reappeared, holding a crow by its claw. He took the trophy into the carriage with him,--two ladies and a second man occupying the other seats,--and as I emerged from the pine wood, fifteen minutes afterward, I found it lying in the middle of the road. Its shining feathers would fly no more; but its death had brightened the day of some of the lords and ladies of creation. What happier fate could a crow ask for? One of my first desires, this time (there is always something in particular on my mind when I go to Franconia), was to revisit Lonesome Lake, a romantic sheet of water lying deep in the wilderness on the back side of Mount Cannon, at an elevation of perhaps twenty-eight hundred feet, or something less than a thousand feet above the level of Profile Notch. One of its two owners, fortunately, is of our Franconia company; and when I spoke of my intention of visiting it again, he bade me drive up with his man, who would be going that way within a day or two. Late as the season was getting, he still went up to the lake once or twice a week, it appeared, keeping watch over the cabin, boat-house, and so forth. The plan suited my convenience perfectly. We drove to the foot of the bridle path, off the Notch road; the man put a saddle on the horse and rode up, and I followed on foot. The climb is longer or shorter, as the climber may elect. A pedestrian would do it in thirty minutes, or a little less, I suppose; a nature-loving stroller may profitably be two hours about it. There must be at least a hundred trees along the path, which a sensitive man might be glad to stop and commune with: ancient birches, beeches, and spruces, any one of which, if it could talk, or rather if we had ears to hear it, would tell us things not to be read in any book. Hundreds of years many of the spruces must have stood there. Some of them, in all likelihood, were of a good height long before any white man set foot on this continent. Many of them were already old before they ever saw a paleface. What dwarfs and weaklings these restless creatures are, that once in a while come puffing up the hillside, halting every few minutes to get their breath and stare foolishly about! What murderer’s curse is on them, that they have no home, no abiding-place, where they can stay and get their growth?