heir shores at some point, for an
extensive business employing so many men could hardly exist without a
means of easy transportation. To the neighbourhood of the Lakes
Settlement, however, this road was a mystery. The party halted at a log
house by the side of the road proper, and Mr. Perrowne, who claimed
Richards as a parishioner, asked his wife if he and his friends could
have the use of her boat. Mrs. Richards gave the required permission
very graciously, and the excursionists struck into the bush path which
led to Lake No. 1, or Richards' Lake. The bush had once been
underbrushed, perhaps a long time back by the Indians who generally made
for water; but the underbrush was now replaced by a dense growth of
Canadian yew, commonly called Ground Hemlock, the crimson berry of which
is one of the prettiest objects in the vegetable world. It, and other
shrubs and small saplings, encroached on the narrow path, and, in
places, almost obliterated it. The land rose into a ridge a short
distance from the water, so that it was invisible until the crest was
reached. Then, a dark circular lake, seemingly altogether shut in by the
elsewhere dense forest, made its appearance. There were remains of a log
shelter near the shore on the left, and, between it and the somewhat
muddy beach, Toner lit a fire of drift wood to drive away the flies
which followed the party out of the bush. The punt was soon discovered
moored to a stake, a punt with three seats flush with the gunwales, one
each fore and aft, and one in the centre.

"O, I saye," cried Mr. Perrowne, "look at that lovely little island out
there! See, you can hardly see it because of the black shadows. What a
place to fish! and here we are without a single rod."

"Ain't no need to trouble about rods," remarked Ben; "I kin cut you
half-a-dozen in two shakes of a dead lamb's taiul."

"And I've got three hooked lines," added the lawyer, producing part of
his Beaver River purchase from his breast pocket. The dominie did not
wish to trust himself in a doubtful craft with Coristine again, and he
distrusted the Captain, save on the _Susan Thomas_. His former success
in fishing, and his present pleasant relations with Perrowne, prompted
him to join that gentleman in practising the gentle art. But what about
bait? The question having been put to Toner, who returned with three
springy saplings, and worms having been suggested, that veteran
fisherman told Mr. Perrowne that he might as well