xceeding narrowness and the
position of the fires, it seemed as though the place had really been
selected to dispute our outward passage. We were not more than two
hundred yards from the strait and the breeze was holding well into it.
What was to be done? Samuel was for putting the helm up; but that would
Have been useless, because we were already in the channel, and to run on
shore would only place us still more in the power of our enemies, if
enemies they were, so I told him to hold his course and run right through
the narrow pass. The other men had sprung quickly from their blankets,
and Thomas was the picture of terror. When he saw that I was about to run
the boat through the strait, he instantly made up his mind to shape for
himself a different course. Abandoning his flint musket to any body who
would take it, he clambered like a monkey on to the gunwale, with the
evident intention of dropping noiselessly into the water, and seeking, by
swimming on shore, a safety which he deemed denied to him on board. Never
shall I forget his face as he was pulled back into the boat; nor is it
easy to describe the sudden revulsion of feeling which possessed him
when: a dozen different fires breaking into view showed at once that the
forest was on fire, and that the imaginary bivouac of the French was only
the flames of burning brushwood. Samuel laughed over his mistake, but
Thomas looked on it in no laughing light, and, seizing his gun, stoutly
maintained that had it really been the French they would have learnt a
terrible lesson from the united volleys of the fourteen-shooter and his
flint musket.

The Lake of the Woods covers a very large extent of country. In length it
measures about seventy miles, and its greatest breadth is about the same
distance; its shores are but little known, and it is only the Indian who
can steer with accuracy through its labyrinthine channels. In its
southern portion it spreads out into a vast expanse of open water, the
surface of which is lashed by tempests into high-running seas.

In the early days of the French fur trade it yielded large stores of
beaver and of martens, but it has long ceased to be rich in furs. Its
shores and islands will be found to abound in minerals whenever
civilization reaches them.

Among the Indians the lake holds high place as the favourite haunt of the
Manitou. The strange water-worn rocks, the islands of soft pipe-stone
from which are cut the bowls for many a calumet,