to be trivial about my gift until she 

 saw a similar pair soaking in the 

 water beside me. 



I mention this incident as it 

 occasioned the only shaft of amuse- 

 ment that pierced the gloom slowly 

 deepening upon the men. It was 

 like the odour of a bear's skull that 

 Clifford had killed the winter before 

 and hung on a stick near the trail, 

 the pervasiveness of which had 

 fraught the lunch hour with un- 

 pleasant suggestion. 



A horse with a load beyond its 

 capacity bucks it off or lies down. 

 A top-heavy canoe is like an un- 

 broken mustang. It follows no laws. 

 It turns and whirls and does queer 

 lurches that give one the unwelcome 

 feelings of a sudden up-shooting 

 elevator, and ours was withal so 

 cranky and unmanageable that only 

 Bert's expert paddling again and 

 again, when we were almost over, 

 saved our possessions at least from 

 a watery annihilation. Of course / 

 was quite safe for had I not my 

 water wings? Ready for immediate 

 service, they trailed in the water, two 

 fat pink balloons, and I have no 



