River Fishing 



neat men, heaped provision-sacks, with 

 groups of squaws and beady-eyed children, 

 give the place an air of settlement and dis- 

 cipline. The next hour all has vanished 

 with the beat of oars dying away beyond 

 the bend below. 



As these trails have been trodden for at 

 least a hundred years, their condition is 

 singular in two ways, that it is no worse 

 and no better. Long stretches of portage 

 are level ; and on these it would be easy to 

 lay and keep in order rough tramways of 

 timber, over which trolleys with burdens 

 might be rolled with less labor than car- 

 ries now exact. In winter the snow gives 

 a smooth track ; and it may be that sum- 

 mer is too short to make it worth while, 

 or that the natives are waiting for a branch- 

 line up the valley. 



The time used in crossing Long Port- 

 age, with its double transshipment, will not 

 reasonably be less than six or seven hours 

 under fair-weather conditions. But into 

 each life some rain must fall, rather more 

 on the Nepigon than at home. When, 

 under a thunderstorm breaking over the 

 trail, the bushes drip, and the stones slip, 

 and all the guides' care can hardly save 

 the sacks dry, it may be a day's work to 

 reach the grassy slope at its upper end. 



105 



