lve miles of
wilderness to the nearest point of supplies, four miles of it carries,
included. Such weather might last a week, and I decided to go. For half
an hour I sat on the beach, taking weather notes. The wind was
northeast; my course was due west, giving me four points free. Taking
five feet of strong line, I tied one end under a rib next the keelson
and the other around the paddle. Stripping to shirt and drawers, I
stowed everything in the knapsack and tied that safely in the fore
peak. Then I swung out. Before I was a half mile out, I fervently
wished myself back. But it was too late. How that little, corky, light
canoe did bound and snap, with a constant tendency to come up in the
wind'e eye, that kept me on the qui vive every instant. She shipped no
mater; she was too buoyant for that. But she was all the time in danger
of pitching her crew overboard. It soon came to a crisis. About the
middle of the lake, on the north side, there is a sharp, low gulch that
runs away back through the hills, looking like a level cut through a
railroad embankment. And down this gulch came a fierce thunder gust
that was like a small cyclone. It knocked down trees, swept over the
lake and caught the little canoe on the crest of a wave, right under
the garboard streak. I went overboard like a shot; but I kept my grip
on the paddle. That grip was worth a thousand dollars to the
"Travelers' Accidental" and another thousand to the "Equitable
Company" because the paddle, with its line, enabled me to keep the
canoe in hand and prevent her from going away to leeward like a dry
leaf. When I once got my nose above water and my hand on her after
stem, I knew I had the whole business under control. Pressing the stem
down, I took a look inboard. The little jilt! She had not shipped a
quart of water. And there was the knapsack, the rod, the little
auxiliary paddle, all just as I had tied them in; only the crew and the
double-blade had gone overboard. As I am elderly and out of practice in
the swimming line, and it was nearly half a mile to a lee shore, and as
I was out of breath and water logged, it is quite possible that a
little forethought and four cents' worth of fishline saved the
insurance companies two thousand dollars.

How I slowly kicked that canoe ashore; how the sun came out bright and
hot; how, instead of making the remaining eleven miles, I raised a
conflagration and a comfortable camp, dried out and had a pleasant
night of it;