LAKE IN THE WOODS. 325 



industrious lumbermen and builders of the forest are hard 

 at work preparing for the winter. At every well-used 

 beaver or otter road we come to, We stop and set a trap. 

 We also make traps for mink every here and there, 

 baiting them with trout, that I can catch at all times by 

 merely dropping a fly or a bait into the river. 



Our progress was necessarily slow, and although the 

 distance was only 16 or 17 miles it was noon on the third 

 day before we reached the lake. As our bark emerges 

 from the forest-hidden stream and glides through the 

 unruffled waters of the lake, a flock of black ducks, who 

 have never seen a canoe before, allow us to approach 

 within 50 yards, and two splendid loons seem utterly 

 unmindful of us. The lake appears to be about 10 miles 

 in length by 2 in breadth. Close to the outlet a freshly 

 plastered beaver camp rises out of the water, and on the 

 pebbly beach we discern fresh moose tracks. All these 

 signs denote that man is a stranger here, and in the 

 highest spirits as we eat our luncheon we feast our eyes 

 on this trapper's paradise. We would not on any account 

 disturb this charming solitude by the noise of the axe, so 

 for the present, putting off building a camp, we proceed to 

 explore. 



I know of no pleasure so great, no pursuit so engrossing, 

 as when the trapper and the sportsman (for the two pur- 

 suits are always associated) breaks new ground. Here we 

 three, white man and Indians, differing in colour, in 

 bringing up, in every respect in fact but one, meet 

 together on common ground. We are all three sportsmen 

 at heart. We would not give a fig, one of us, to stand 

 at a corner of a cover, and have tame birds and beasts 



