PERILS OF PIONEERING. 179 



river and wanted to know when we were going to 

 launch it, and remarked that the men with him were 

 making a bark canoe, and said further that if we did 

 not look smart their canoe would be ready first. We 

 said he had better wait for ours and promised that it 

 should be ready the next morning. 



Having got our ship into the water we prepared to 

 embark. Mr. Macfarlane advised taking off our boots, 

 as he said " something might happen." We then began 

 to run down with the current, intending to go to a 

 place where the absence of trees would make it less 

 dangerous to cross. 



Soon after starting we were surprised to see my 

 brother on the side we had just left, and asked him 

 how he got there. He told us that the men with him 

 had finished their canoe, and being tired of wait- 

 ing he had got one of them to put him over. He 

 asked us whether our canoe was seaworthy, and began 

 to make joking remarks about it thought it was a 

 " rakish-looking craft," and wondered what we carried 

 in " that thing " at the stern. We told him that was 

 the place where we carried the mail. 



Jokes and good humor prevailed for a short time, 

 when right at our bows was a huge limb of a tree, 

 which, although broken down, still hung to the tree, 

 while its small branches were in the water, and kept 



