. When you want a fish here, all
you've got to do is to run out to the river, grab one in your arms,
and bring him in!"

"Then run out and get one now!" advised Will.

"Perhaps you think I can't!" shouted Tommy.

Seizing a head-net the boy dashed away to the margin of Moose
river. His chums saw him walking about in quest of a minnow for a
moment and then heard the swish of a line. In ten minutes he was
back at the camp with a whitefish weighing at least five pounds.

There is incessant fishing in the wilderness north of Lake Superior
throughout every month of the year. All through the long winter
the ice is cut away in order that the fish may be reached, and
there is every sort of fishing between that which engages the
labors of sailing vessels and men, down through all the methods of
fish-taking, by nets, by spearing, still-fishing and fly-fishing.

Though the region has been famous, and therefore much visited, for
many years, the field is so extensive, so well stocked, and so
difficult of access, that even today almost the very largest known
specimens of each class of fish are to be had there.

"These are the kind of fish the Indians live on during the winter,"
Tommy explained as he scraped the scales from his prize. "Only,"
he continued, "the Indians don't clean them at all. They simply
make a hole in the tail end of each fish and string them up like
beads on sticks which they set up in racks."

"I never did like cold-storage fish," Sandy declared, in a tone of
disgust. "They taste like dry corn meal!"

While the fish cooked and the boys sat in the protecting smudge of
the campfire, the sound of paddles was heard up the river. The
swish and splash came on steadily for a moment and then suddenly
ceased.

"I thought we were going to have company," suggested Will.

The boys listened for a time but no further sounds were heard.

"Now what would any one be doing in this wilderness?" Sandy asked.
"What would any one be sneaking around us for?"

"Perhaps they don't even know we're here!" argued George.

"With that great campfire going?" scoffed Tommy. "Why, they can
see the light of that fire for ten miles or more!"

"That's right," replied George. "I guess that fire wouldn't help
to hide our presence here any."

"Suppose I go and see what's doing?" asked Tommy.

"You know your failings, young man!" Will cut in. "If you go out
in the wilderness to see who's running that canoe, you're likely to