rious combination of smells.

It was such incidents as this that led us on. The morning was gone,
presently, and we had no means of knowing how far we had come. It seemed
to us but a short way. We forgot the windings of the stream, some of
which we had eluded by cut-offs, and how many hard places there would be
for Del and Charlie to get over with the canoes. As a matter of fact we
rather expected them to overtake us at any time, and as the pools became
deeper and longer and the rapids somewhat more navigable we feared to
leave the stream on the chance of being passed. It was about one o'clock
when we reached a really beautiful stretch of water, wide and deep, and
navigable for an indefinite distance. Here we stopped to get fish for
luncheon, and to wait for the boats, which we anticipated at any moment.

It was a wonderful place to fish. One could wade out and get long casts
up and down, and the trout rose to almost any fly. Eddie caught a white
perch at last and I two yellow ones, not very plentiful in these waters
and most desirable from the food point of view. The place seemed really
inexhaustible. I think there were few trout larger than fourteen inches
in length, but of these there were a great many, and a good supply of
the speckled beauty size. When we had enough of these for any possible
luncheon demand, and were fairly weary of casting and reeling in, we
suddenly realized that we were hungry; also that it was well into the
afternoon and that there were no canoes in sight. Furthermore, in the
enthusiasm of the sport we had both of us more than once stepped beyond
the gunwales of our waders and had our boots full of water, besides
being otherwise wet. Once, in fact, I had slipped off a log on all
fours, in a rather deep place. It began to be necessary that we should
have a camp and be fed. Still we waited hopefully, expecting every
moment to see the canoes push around the bend.

Eventually we were seized with misgivings. Could the guides have met
with shipwreck in some desperate place and disabled one or both of the
canoes, perhaps losing our stores? The thought was depressing. Was it
possible that they had really passed us during some period when we had
left the water, and were now far ahead? We could not believe it. Could
it be that the river had divided at some unseen point and that we had
followed one fork and they another? It did not seem probable. Perhaps,
after all, we had come farther than we believed,