he little stream for lunch and
consultation. It was not a desirable place to camp. The ground was low
and oozy and full of large-leaved greenhousy-looking plants. The recent
rains had not improved the character of the place. There was poison ivy
there, too, and a delegation of mosquitoes. We might just as well have
gone up the brook a hundred yards or so, to higher and healthier ground,
but this would not have been in accord with Eddie's ideas of
exploration. Explorers, he said, always stopped at the mouth of rivers
to debate, and to consult maps and feed themselves in preparation for
unknown hardships to come. So we stopped and sat around in the mud, and
looked at some marks on a paper--made by the imaginative Indian, I
think--and speculated as to whether it would be possible to push and
drag the canoes up the brook, or whether everything would have to go
overland.

Personally, the prospect of either did not fill me with enthusiasm. The
size of the brook did not promise much in the way of important waters
above or fish even the size of one's arm. However, Tobeatic exploration
was down on the cards. Our trip thus far had furnished only a hint of
such mystery and sport as was supposed to lie concealed somewhere beyond
the green, from which only this little brooklet crept out to whisper the
secret. Besides, I had learned to keep still when Eddie had set his
heart on a thing. I left the others poring over the hieroglyphic map,
and waded out into the clean water of the brook. As I looked back at Del
and Charlie, squatting there amid the rank weeds, under the dark,
dripping boughs, with Eddie looking over their shoulders and pointing at
the crumpled paper, spread before them, they formed a picturesque
group--such a one as Livingstone or Stanley and their followers might
have made in the African jungles. When I told Eddie of this he grew
visibly prouder and gave me two new leaders and some special tobacco.

We proceeded up the stream, Eddie and I ahead, the guides pushing the
loaded canoes behind. It was the brook of our forefathers--such a stream
as might flow through the valley meadows of New England, with trout of
about the New England size, and plentiful. Lively fellows, from seven to
nine inches in length, rose two and three at almost every cast. We put
on small flies and light leaders and forgot there were such things as
big trout in Nova Scotia. It was joyous, old-fashioned fishing--a real
treat for a change.

We ha