Читать книгу Camping in the Winter Woods: Adventures of Two Boys in the Maine Woods онлайн

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Ben smiled at the boys and led them to the wagon.

“Well, all aboard, we’ll go on now,” he said.

The lads looked at him in wonder. They did not understand how he could read so much from the few marks in the mud, which, had he not called them to their attention, they would never have noticed.

“Well, that’s your first lesson,” said Ben, as he started the team. “You’ll have many more.”

“My, you know a lot!” declared Ed, enthusiastically. “Who told you all that, Ben?”

“‘The Old Man of the Woods,’” he laughed, and the boys wondered who that might be.

At the foot of a long hill they came to a bit of low, open country, apparently a swamp, or marsh. The wagon bumped and bounced so that the boys had all they could do to hang on. Looking down, they were surprised to find that the road was made of logs laid side by side, lengthwise, across it. They asked Ben for an explanation, and he said it was what was called a “corduroy” road; so named because of its similarity to the ridges in that cloth.

Then he explained that the ground beneath was soft and marshy, and that without the logs the wagon would sink to the hubs. He said the lumbermen built such roads that they could draw out their great loads of logs which they cut far back in the forest. The boys became interested at once and asked about these men and their work. The guide finally promised that some time he would take them to a lumber camp, where they could see these things for themselves.