Paddled down to Rustic Lodge (1 mile) and at three got "boat-wagon" for Axton (2 1/2 miles) reaching there at four, and embarking once more on the Raquette River here slower as to current and God-forsaken as to lack of foliage. A treeless waste, save for a few birches and small underbrush.

Desolation impresses one with a sense os solitude. Not the contented sort of solitude of the forest, but the unfriendly desolation of the waste places and barren wildernesses of the earth. Picked out the least God-forsaken place we could find on the east bank of the river, near a tall blasted pine, for a camp. Traces of former occupancy. Fred fired half a dozen shots at a small animal just before we camped, but failed to hit it, and it got away in a hole in a tree.