ngs along the shore, so it is just
as well that there was no excuse for doing it.

As it was, we paddled rather silently down the still river, considerably
impressed with the thought that we were entering a land to us
unknown--that for far and far in every direction, beyond the white mist
that shut us in and half-obliterated the world, it was likely that there
was no human soul that was not of our party and we were quieted by the
silence and the loneliness on every hand.

Where the river entered the lake there was no dashing, tumbling water.
In fact, we did not realize that we had reached the lake level until the
shores on either hand receded, slowly at first, and then broadly
widening, melted away and were half lost in the mist.

The feeling grew upon me, all at once, that we were very high here.
There were no hills or ridges that we could see, and the outlines of
such timber as grew along the shore seemed low. It was as if we had
reached the top of the world, where there were no more hills--where the
trees had been obliged to struggle up to our altitude, barely to fringe
us round. As for course now, we had none. Our map was of the vaguest
sort. Where the outlet was we could only surmise.

In a general way it was supposed to be at the "other end" of the lake,
where there was said to be an old dam, built when the region was
lumbered, long ago. But as to the shape of the lake, and just where that
"other end" might lie, when every side except the bit of shore nearest
at hand was lost in the wet, chill mist, were matters for conjecture and
experiment. We paddled a little distance and some islands came out of
the gray veil ahead--green Nova Scotia islands, with their ledges of
rock, some underbrush and a few sentinel pines. We ran in close to
these, our guides looking for moose or signs of them.

I may say here that no expedition in Nova Scotia is a success without
having seen at least one moose. Of course, in the hunting season, the
moose is the prime object, but such is the passion for this animal among
Nova Scotia guides, that whatever the season or the purpose of the
expedition, and however triumphant its result, it is accounted a
disappointment and a failure by the natives when it ends without at
least a glimpse of a moose.

We were in wonderful moose country now; the uninvaded wild, where in
trackless bog and swamp, or on the lonely and forgotten islands the
she-moose secludes herself to bear and rear her young.