re might after a sip of superior Burgundy.

"How do you fancy this?" we asked the attorney-at-law.

"I am not going to deliver an opinion until I get ashore. I would never
have believed that I would be here at my time of life, but one never
knows what a ---- fool one can make of one's self. My glasses are covered
with water, and I can hardly see, but I can't let go of this paddle to
wipe them," shrieked the man of the office chair, in the howl of the
weather.

But we made a long journey by the aid of the wind, and grew a contempt
for it. How could one imagine the stability of those little boats until
one had tried it?

That night we put into a natural harbor and camped on a gravel beach.
The tents were up and the supper cooking, when the wind hauled and blew
furiously into our haven. The fires were scattered and the rain came in
blinding sheets. The tent-pegs pulled from the sand. We sprang to our
feet and held on to the poles, wet to the skin. It was useless; the rain
blew right under the canvas. We laid the tents on the "grub" and stepped
out into the dark. We could not be any wetter, and we did not care. To
stand in the dark in the wilderness, with nothing to eat, and a
fire-engine playing a hose on you for a couple of hours--if you have
imagination enough, you can fill in the situation. But the gods were
propitious. The wind died down. The stars came out by myriads. The fires
were relighted, and the ordinary life begun. It was late in the night
before our clothes, blankets, and tents were dry, but, like boys, we
forgot it all.

Then came a river--blue and flat like the sky above--running through
rushy banks, backed by the masses of the forest; anon the waters rushed
upon us over the rocks, and we fought, plunk-plunk-plunk, with the
paddles, until our strength gave out. We stepped out into the water, and
getting our lines, and using our long double blades as fenders,
"tracked" the canoes up through the boil. The Indians in their heavier
boats used "setting-poles" with marvellous dexterity, and by furious
exertion were able to draw steadily up the grade--though at times they
too "tracked," and even portaged. Our largest canoe weighed two hundred
pounds, but a little voyager managed to lug it, though how I couldn't
comprehend, since his pipe-stem legs fairly bent and wobbled under the
enormous ark. None of us by this time were able to lift the loads which
we carried, but, like a Western pack-mule, we stood about a