As Bige and I descended the steep slope from our lookout, we were quickly buried among the evergreens, with the only extended view toward the blue sky and floating clouds above the tall tree tops. Having in mind the experience of the previous day, the compass was frequently consulted, but travel was difficult and progress slow. An hour later we came upon a small log cabin, having a roof of spruce bark, no floor, but a puncheon door and one window. In one corner was a crude fireplace made of stones, having two lengths of stove pipe which passed through the window for a chimney. Opposite the fireplace was a balsam bed and in another corner was a pile of spruce gum. There were also a frying pan, tin plate, knife and fork, and on a bark shelf some food stuff. We left the shack and on a path a short distance from it, we met its owner who was returning. He was of uncertain age, but with white hair and white scraggy beard. He carried a bag partly filled with gum and in one hand a long pole having a small shovel-shaped piece of steel fastened to one end. This implement he used to loosen a ball of gum that was too high on the tree trunk to be otherwise reached. The man proved to be Sam Lapham. Bige knew him and I had often heard about him. Sam spent most of the summer collecting spruce gum, which he was able to sell for a good price. This unfrequented part of the forest was one of his camping places during the "gumming season." The sticky juice of the spruce tree oozes out through cracks in the wood, and collects on the bark where it hangs in lumps from the size of a child's thumb up to the dimensions of a hen's egg. In the course of years of exposure to the air this pitchy material crystallizes, "ripens," and becomes spruce gum. On inquiry we learned that there is a constant demand for spruce gum, but an insufficient supply since few make a business of collecting it. It appears that a few pounds of clarified spruce gum and an equal quantity of "chicle" from South America are mixed with a carload of paraffine wax and some flavoring extract, the result being the "chewing gum" of commerce which is distributed by the one-cent slot machines, and furnishes exercise for the jaw muscles of the rising generation. It has been estimated that more than five million dollars are expended for chewing gum in the United States every year. [Illustration: Blue Mountain seen from Owl's Head] It also is possible to chew pure spruce gum, just as it is broken from the tree trunk. I have tried it. In this operation one must "watch his step" to avoid lockjaw. At least, caution must be exercised until the quid is well "started." I understand that in some places it is possible, at an increased cost, to buy spruce gum that has been "started."