150 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



ill-concealed disfavor the marked attention that several 

 of the young bucks delighted to pay to her. So he 

 resolved that with the going out of the ice he would 

 take his family, his tents, his pirogue, his canoes, cer- 

 tain cooking utensils and a goodly store of " fleur " 

 (flour), beans, salt pork, tea, tobacco and bacon, with 

 fishing-tackle, rifles, powder and ball, and spend the 

 summer on Lake Nictau, the fountainhead of the 

 Tobique River. Here he and his family would catch 

 trout, smoke and dry them, hunt bears in the rich 

 blueberry barrens, tan their moose and bear hides and 

 render their fat, kill a moose, now and then, for fresh 

 meat, and thus keep his daughter far away from her 

 ardent wooers. Therefore, when the river was clear 

 he started with two canoes loaded up to their full 

 carrying capacity, and the pirogue filled as full as it 

 would hold, and in this manner the family made their 

 migration to the far-off haven of security. 



The trip was a hard one, there being but little " dead- 

 water " in the stream ; in fact, possibly four-fifths 

 of the ninety-seven miles of river in which they had to 

 push their way up against a strong current was " quick- 

 water." Their paddles were, therefore, of little use. It 

 was " poling " nearly all of the way, and that, too, over 

 a bad rocky bottom, where the poles slipped incessantly. 

 The two sons poled the pirogue, the father one of the 

 canoes in which his wife was seated, Anita managing 

 the remaining canoe skilfully and with consummate 



