56 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



stood knee deep in a water-lily bay, and watched us on our way. 

 But Oo-koo-hoo was now too drowsy to think of anything but 

 sleep. So hour after hour went by while the moon rose higher 

 and higher, and circling round to the westward, began to 

 descend in front of us. 



POLING UP RAPIDS 



Out of the east came dawn with a sweep of radiant splendour. 

 Still we sailed westward, ever westward, until the sun rose and 

 through the rising mist showed us that the mouth of Caribou 

 River opened right before us; then, happily, we landed on a 

 little island to breakfast, and to drowse away a couple of hours 

 on mossy beds beneath the shade of wind-blown pines. 



Besides shooting a few ducks and a beaver, and seeing a 

 distant moose, nothing happened that was eventful enough to 

 deflect my interest from the endless variety of charming scenery 

 that came into view as we swept round bend after bend of that 

 woodland river; at least, not until about four o'clock, when 

 we arrived at the foot of another rapid. This Oo-koo-hoo and 

 Amik examined carefully from the river bank, and decided that 

 it could be ascended by poling. So from green wood we cut 

 suitable poles of about two inches in diameter and from seven to 

 nine feet in length and knifed them carefully to rid them of bark 

 and knots. Then, for this was a shoal rapids, both bowman 

 and sternman stood up, the better to put the full force of their 

 strength and weight into the work; the children, however, 

 merely knelt to the work of wielding their slender poles; but in 

 deep water, or where there were many boulders and conse- 

 quently greater risk if the canoe were overturned, all would 

 have knelt to do the work. 



Going bow-on straight for the mid-stream current, we plied 

 our poles to good advantage. Each man remembered, how- 

 ever, to lift his pole only when his mate's had been planted 



