There was much pine timber in this township that yet belonged to the government and to the state of Wisconsin. I, at this time, had descriptions of more than four thousand acres of these lands which I was anxious to buy. My interest and anxiety, therefore, became intense when I knew that my presence had been discovered by the parties who had so unintentionally left that bird on their trail. There were no railroads in that part of the country at that time, and Stevens Point, the location of the government land office, lay more than sixty-five miles south of where we then were. Twenty-five miles of this distance was mostly through the woods and must be traveled on foot. It was then late in the afternoon and neither party could make progress after dark. The route through the woods led through a swamp, and, upon reaching it, the tracks of two men were plainly to be seen in the moss, and in places in the wet ground. One man wore heavy boots, with the soles well driven with hobnails, which left their imprints in the moist soil. Coming to a trail that led off into a small settlement, we saw the tracks of one of the two men following that trail. The tracks of the man with the hobnails kept directly on in the course leading to the nearest highway that would take him to Wausau, a thriving lumber town, forty miles distant from Stevens Point. We reached this road at about three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. We called at the first house approached, and asked the woman if she could give us some bread and milk, and, being answered in the affirmative, we sat down for a rest, and inquired of her if she had seen a woodsman pass. She replied that she had, and that he had left there within an hour of the time of our arrival. The tracks of the boots with the hobnails could be seen occasionally along the road, and, knowing that the stage, the only public conveyance from Wausau to Stevens Point, was not due to leave Wausau for Stevens Point until four o'clock the next morning, we had no further anxiety about overtaking the woodsman who had left there an hour in advance, since we reasoned that he would probably take the stage at its usual hour of leaving, the next day. [Illustration: "There were many waterfalls". (Page 136.)]