204 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



short of venison, we decided to lie by awhile, and 

 float down the river on our way to camp, in hope 

 of meeting a deer. To this end we had gone 

 ashore at this point, and, kindling a small fire, 

 were waiting for denser darkness. We had barely 

 started the blaze, when the tap of a carelessly 

 handled paddle against the side of a boat warned 

 us that we should soon have company, and in a 

 moment two boats glided around the curve below, 

 and were headed directly toward our bivouac. The 

 boats contained two gentlemen and their guides. 

 We gave them a cordial, hunter-like greeting, and, 

 lighting our pipes, were soon engaged in cheerful 

 conversation, spiced with story-telling. It might 

 have been some twenty minutes or more, when 

 another boat, smaller than you ordinarily see even 

 on those waters, containing only the paddler, came 

 noiselessly around the bend . below, and stood re- 

 vealed in the reflection of the firelight. I chanced 

 to be sitting in such a position as to command a 

 full view of the curve in the river, or I should not 

 have known of any approach, for the boat was so 

 sharp and light, and he who urged it along so 

 skilled at the paddle, that not a ripple, no, nor the 

 sound of a drop of water falling from blade or shaft, 

 betrayed the paddler' s presence. If there is any- 

 thing over which I become enthusiastic, it is such 

 a boat and such paddling. To see a boat of bark or 

 cedar move through the water noiselessly as a cloud- 



