nd I
didn't know where my breakfast was coming from, I was supremely happy;
I sort of felt I was doing the best I could."

We went to bed that night feeling that our lives now depended on
whether fish could be caught below.

More than anxious were we for the morrow, because then we should go to
the first rapid on the Beaver River below the lakes, and there in the
pool, where two fishings had yielded us more than one hundred and
thirty trout on the up trail, test our fortunes.

The morning (October 9th) dawned crisp and wintry. The sun rose in a
cloudless sky and set all the lake a-glinting. On the peaks of the
Kipling Mountains the sunbeams kissed the snow, causing it to gleam and
scintillate in brilliant contrast to the deep blue of the heavens above
and the dark green of the forests below. Under normal circumstances we
should have paused to drink in the beauty of it all; but as we in our
faithful old canoe paddled quickly down over the lake I am afraid that
none of us thought of anything save the outcome of the test we were to
make of our fortunes at the rapid for which we were bound. It is
difficult to be receptive to beauty when one has had only a little
watered pea meal for breakfast after a long train of lean and hungry
days. We were glad only that the sun was modifying the chill air of
the dawn, thus increasing our chance of getting fish.

How friendly the narrow lake looked where we had seen the otter at play
at sunset and where the loons had laughed at us so derisively. And the
point, where we had camped that August night and roasted our goose
seemed very homelike. We stopped there for a moment to look for bones.
There were a few charred ones where the fire had been. They crumbled
without much pressure, and we ate them. No trout were jumping in the
lake now--its mirror-like surface was unbroken. All was still, very
still. To our somewhat feverish imagination it seemed as if all nature
were bating its breath as if tensely waiting for the outcome at the
fishing pool.

I can hardly say what we expected. I fear my own faith was weak, but I
believe Hubbard's was strong--his was the optimistic temperament. How
glad we were to feel the river current as it caught the canoe and
hurried it on to the rapid! Suddenly, as we turned a point in the
stream, the sound of the rushing waters came to us. A few moments more
and we were there. Just above the rapid we ran the canoe ashore, and
Hubbard with his r