68 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



for our camp. As it meant a long, stiff paddle against a strong 

 current for most of the distance, we were up early, if not bright, 

 and on our way before sunrise. This time, however, no rapids 

 impeded us and we reached the portage on the farther shore 

 of Height-of-land Lake, tired and hungry, but happy over a 

 day's work well done. It was a pretty little lake about two 

 miles long, surrounded by low-lying land in the midst of a range 

 of great rock-bound hills, and its waters had a whimsical fashion 

 of running either east or west according to which way the wind 

 struck it. Thus its waters became divided and, flowing either 

 way, travel afar to their final destinations in oceans thousands 

 of miles apart. But the western outlet, Moose Creek, being too 

 shallow for canoes, a portage of a couple of miles was made the 

 following day, to the fork of an incoming stream that doubles 

 its waters and makes the creek navigable. When we camped 

 that night the hour was late. Then a two-days' run the 

 second of which we travelled due north took us into Moose 

 Lake; but not without shooting three rapids, each of which the 

 Indians examined carefully before we undertook the sport that 

 all enjoyed so much. An eastern storm, however, caught us 

 on Moose Lake and not only sent us ashore on an island, but 

 windbound us there for two days while cold showers pelted us. 

 Another day and a half up Bear River, with a portage round 

 Crane Falls, landed us on the western shore of Bear Lake at the 

 mouth of Muskrat Creek and there we were to spend the 

 winter. 



There, too, I remembered Thoreau when he said: "As I 

 ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow 

 over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my 

 ear through the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, 

 my Good Genius seemed to say, 'Go fish and hunt far and 

 wide day by day, farther and wider, and rest thee by many 

 brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy 

 Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before 



