ep with our outfit, was drawn up with its
prow resting snugly on the sandy bottom of the little strait that is
locally known as the Northwest River. Mackenzie and a group of swarthy
natives gathered on the shore to see us off. All but the high-spirited
agent were grave and sceptical, and shook their heads at our
persistency in going into a country we had been so frequently warned
against.

The atmosphere was crisp, pure, and exhilarating. The fir trees and
shrubs gave out a delicious perfume, and their waving tops seemed to
beckon us on. The sky was deep blue, with here and there a feathery
cloud gliding lazily over its surface. The bright sunlight made our
hearts bound and filled our bodies with vigour, and as we stood there
on the edge of the unknown and silent world we had come so far to see,
our hopes were high, and one and all we were eager for the battle with
the wild.

"I wish I were going with you; good-bye and Godspeed!" shouted
Mackenzie, as we pushed the canoe into deep water and dipped our
paddles into the current. In a moment he and the grave men that stood
with him were lost to view. Up through the strait into the Little Lake
we paddled, thence to the rapid where the waters of Grand Lake pour
out. With one end of a tracking line, Hubbard sprang into the shallow
water near the shore below the swift-running stream, and with the other
end fastened to the bow of the canoe, pulled it through the rapid. A
"planter's" family in a cabin near by watched us wonderingly.

Then we were in Grand Lake. Hubbard remarked that it looked like Lake
George, save that the hills were lower. For a few miles above its
outlet the shores on both sides of the lake are low. Then on the south
come bluffs that rise, stern and grand in their nudity, almost
perpendicularly from the deep, clear water, while on the north come
lower hills, the most part wooded, that retreat more gently from the
rocky shore. Heading for the extreme upper of the lake, where Low's
map and the natives had led us to expect we should find the Northwest
or Nascaupee River, we paddled along the north shore to a point where
we stopped among the rocks for a luncheon of flapjacks and syrup.

We were away without waste of time, paddling diagonally across the lake
to the south shore. The fleecy clouds had now thickened, and a few
drops of rain had fallen. In our course across the lake we passed Cape
Corbeau (Raven), but were so far out that the mouth of