it, when again we heard the report of guns. So
anxious were we to get on that we hesitated about stopping. It was now
later in the season than often in some other years. Fierce storms had
raged, and the ice had formed on the lake and rivers. We were dreading
these fierce fall storms, which come down very suddenly, and stir up
those northern lakes, so that in a very short time where all was calm
and still, great foam-crested waves go rushing madly by.

The lake before us, into which we had just entered and which was several
miles in diameter, was now as placid as a pond.

To cross it now, as in wondrous beauty it spread before us, would be but
a pleasure jaunt. The poetry of motion is to be found in the Indian's
birch canoe, when the water is calm and the sky is clear. Cold-hearted
prudence said, "Go on, and never mind those Indians' signals for you to
land." Our better natures said, "They may be in need, and have good
reason for asking you to stop. Perhaps you can do them good." So we
turned the head of our canoe to the shore, and were soon alongside the
rock on which we saw them standing. They were five hunters. Without
getting out of the canoe, we asked why they had signalled to us to come
ashore. Their answer was one we had often heard before. They were
hungry, and wanted help. Finding they had only been a few days away
from the Fort, where they had got supplies, I asked how it was that they
were so badly off. Their reply was that they had unfortunately left
their powder, which they were carrying in a canvas bag, out on the rock
a few nights before. While they slept the rain came down upon them and
ruined it, and so they could not shoot anything. I quickly said to one
of my men, "How much food have we?" He examined our limited supply, and
then said there was about one square meal.

We found these men were pagan Indians, whom I had met before, and had
talked with about becoming Christians; but all I could get from them was
the characteristic Indian shrug of the shoulders, and the words, "As our
fathers lived, so will we." Our dinner was the last of a bear we had
shot a few days before. While it was cooking the storm which we feared
began to gather, and ere our dinner was finished the lake looked very
different from what it was an hour before. If we had not stopped, we
could have easily got across it. As it was now, it would have been
madness to have ventured out upon it. So we had to pull up ou