n 6 THE PIKE 



with the former. This, however, is a little to antici- 

 pate. 



It was inevitable that, while the frail canoe, the 

 best fishing boat to be had, was being made ready, 

 comparison should be instituted between the scene 

 as it spread out before me and the landscape that would 

 have met the eye round one of the ordinary lakes of the 

 home country. Although the lake was so seemingly 

 insignificant that it had no far-spread reputation, as 

 I have said, it was one of a chain of waterways so 

 extended that we might have passed close upon two 

 hundred miles of lakes and connecting channels 

 without landing. This particular lake was some 

 fourteen miles long, one mile wide at the part upon 

 which I fished, and rank with tough water plants. 

 The little town, with its mostly weather-board build- 

 ings, was opposite a wooded island, and there was 

 an air of sunshiny prosperity to which one gets ac- 

 customed, indicating a country where, if nobody is 

 very rich, there is nobody who need be absolutely 

 poor. 



Standing on the primitive wharf, the ever-present 

 loafers talked very boastfully about fish of 40 Ib. The 

 name maskinonge was too long for daily use in a 

 country where time and labour saving is carried to 

 the extent of a fine art. They call the fish, therefore, 



