With Gun (S# Rod in Canada 



floor of the tent. He placed them in an overlapping 

 position like the shingles on a roof. When he laid a 

 couple of sheep-skins on the boughs and our blankets 

 over these, his actions began to show a glimmer of 

 common sense. It was the most fragrant and com- 

 fortable bed it had ever been my good fortune to sleep 

 upon. Many a time before this experience I had cut 

 an armful of evergreen boughs and used them for a 

 mattress, and had found them wanting in everything 

 but holes and knotty limbs. This idea of cutting small, 

 tender twigs of spruce or hemlock and sticking the butts 

 down into the ground, leaving the soft, springy ends 

 upright, had not occurred to me. 



After Tom had made the bed he began to " gather " 

 a little firewood. I should judge he cut half a cord of 

 birch logs. He rolled some big stones on either side of 

 our cooking fire, and about four feet apart, and began 

 piling on the logs. This made a long, high fire, and as 

 it was hardly eight feet from the front of our tent, was 

 wonderfully comfortable. It was nearly morning before 

 Tom had to replenish it. 



The night was frosty, but this camp was the most 

 satisfactory and luxurious one I had ever known under 

 the stars. 



After abreakfastof trout, flapjacks, jam, and "tea-soup," 

 we packed our dunnage into the canoe, and started the 

 day with an exhilarating rush down over Pessquess Falls. 

 That was one of the great moments of my life, since it was 

 the first time I had ever run a real rapid in a canoe. 



The trout started biting right where they left off 

 the night before, and after I'd caught my twenty I quit 

 fishing, lit my pipe, and again mentally harked back to 

 the Rocky Mountains, and made comparisons between 

 this Nova Scotia fishing and my experiences there. 

 With no horses to hobble, catch, saddle, and pack; 



i6 



