NEW BEUNSWICK, " 139 



stern is totally at rest now. A zephyr could not pass more 

 noiselessly. Looking steadily over the side, all the pebbles 

 on the bottom seem to be running up stream hke lightning. 

 Now a huge boulder, and anon a straggling limb of a sunken 

 tree, shoots by like a flash. One would hardly think it 

 possible to strike even one of those boulders, so swiftly do 

 Avc pass. Yet we are only drifting with the current. Whew ! 

 how the midges bite! "Bite-em-no-see-em," the Indians 

 call them. No matter — we must suffer and endure. Yet 

 'tis almost unbearable. Oh! for relief! Great heavens! 

 what has happened ! Larry overboard ! No ! he has struck 

 a salmon. Do you say so ? I declare I didn't see him strike, 

 and I was looking just there all the time! The first I knew 

 the . canoe nearly capsized, and I thought Lany was over- 

 board! Now he lifts the fish into the canoe. What a 

 whopper it is, and what a splash he gives as he breaks the 

 surface ! A twenty-pounder, I declare ! Do you obsen'e 

 how he is struck — perpendicularly amidships, with the iron 

 tine of the spear driven into his back, and the two elastic 

 hickory jaws grasping him firmly on either side. A fish 

 struck so squarely can never get away. If they are mutilated 

 at all, it is generally in the fleshy part of the tail, where the 

 spear catches them when they dart away. . Gracious ! this 

 salmon will flop out of the canoe ! No — a quietus on the 

 head with the paddle ! Now let us go ashore. It is wonder- 

 fully exciting, I admit ; but then these sand-flies ! We start 

 in the morning, I believe. 



At early dawn the prows of the canoes are discerned peer- 

 ing above the bank on the little point of land that juts out 

 opposite the Indian village, just where the Tobique joins 

 the St. John. Four stalwart Indians are stretched upon the 

 ground near by, and a httle fire is blazing at their feet. 



" Halloa ! Are you the men who are to take us up river ?" 



" I suppose." 



" Canoes all tight and dry, eh ? " 



"Yes; canoe dry." 



