grouse in the road, so tame that one could have
knocked them over with poles. We passed many beautiful lakes; among
others, the Two Sisters, one on each side of the road. At noon we
paused at a lake in a deep valley, and fed the horse and had lunch. I
was not long in getting ready my fishing tackle, and, upon a raft made
of two logs pinned together, floated out upon the lake and quickly took
all the trout we wanted.

Early in the afternoon we entered upon what is called _La Grande
Brulure,_ or Great Burning, and to the desolation of living woods
succeeded the greater desolation of a blighted forest. All the
mountains and valleys, as far as the eye could see, had been swept by
the fire, and the bleached and ghostly skeletons of the trees alone met
the gaze. The fire had come over from the Saguenay, a hundred or more
miles to the east, seven or eight years before, and had consumed or
blasted everything in its way. We saw the skull of a moose said to have
perished in the fire. For three hours we rode through this valley and
shadow of death. In the midst of it, where the trees had nearly all
disappeared, and where the ground was covered with coarse wild grass,
we came upon the Morancy River, a placid yellow stream twenty or
twenty-five yards wide, abounding with trout. We walked a short
distance along its banks and peered curiously into its waters. The
mountains on either hand had been burned by the fire until in places
their great granite bones were bare and white.

At another point we were within ear-shot, for a mile or more, of a
brawling stream in the valley below us, and now and then caught a
glimpse of foaming rapids or cascades through the dense spruce,--a
trout stream that probably no man had ever fished, as it would be quite
impossible to do so in such a maze and tangle of woods.

We neither met, nor passed, nor saw any travelers till late in the
afternoon, when we descried far ahead a man on horseback. It was a
welcome relief. It was like a sail at sea. When he saw us he drew rein
and awaited our approach. He, too, had probably tired of the solitude
and desolation of the road. He proved to be a young Canadian going to
join the gang of workmen at the farther end of the road.

About four o'clock we passed another small lake, and in a few moments
more drew up at the bridge over the Jacques Cartier River, and our
forty-mile ride was finished. There was a stable here that had been
used by the road-builders, and was