escaped
from its-fastening through their exertion, and they retie it while they
rest. One is already standing upon the wet slippery rock holding the
canoe in its place, then the others get out. The freight is carried up
piece by piece and deposited on the flat surface some ten feet above;
that done, the canoe is lifted out very gently, for a single blow against
this hard granite boulder would shiver and splinter the frail birch-bark
covering; they raise her very carefully up the steep face of the cliff
and rest again on the top. What a view there is from this coigne of
vantage! We are on the lip of the fall, on each side it makes its plunge,
and below we mark at leisure the torrent we have just braved; above, it
is smooth water, and away ahead we see the foam of another rapid. The
rock on which we stand has been worn smooth by the washing of the water
during countless ages, and from a cleft or fissure there springs a
pine-tree or a rustling aspen. We have crossed the Petit Roches, and our
course is onward still.

Through many scenes like this we held our way during the last days of
July. The weather was beautiful; now and then a thunder-storm would roll
along during the night, but the morning sun rising clear and bright would
almost tempt one to believe that it had been a dream, if the pools of
water in the hollows of the rocks and the dampness of blanket or
oil-cloth had not proved the sun a humbug. Our general distance each day
would be about thirty-two miles, with an average of six portages. At
sunset we made our camp on some rocky isle or shelving shore, one or two
cut wood, another got the cooking things ready, a fourth gummed the seams
of the canoe, a fifth cut shavings from a dry stick for the fire--for
myself, I generally took a plunge in the cool delicious water--and soon
the supper hissed in the pans, the kettle steamed from its suspending
stick, and the evening meal was eaten with appetites such as only the
voyageur can understand.

Then when the shadows of the night had fallen around and all was silent,
save the river's tide against the rocks, we would stretch our blankets on
the springy moss of the crag and lie down to sleep with only the stars
for a roof.

Happy, happy days were these--days the memory of which goes very far into
the future, growing brighter as we journey farther away from them, for
the scenes through which our course was laid were such as speak in
whispers, only when we have left them--