THE THIRD BUFFALO HUNT 121 



others, including the upper Thames, the Afton, the 

 Seine, the Arno, the Tiber, the Iser, the Spree, and the 

 Rhine. 



A hundred miles long is this uncharted stream; fifty 

 feet its breadth of limpid tide; eight feet deep, crystal 

 clear, calm, slow, and deep to the margin. A steamer 

 could ply on its placid, unobstructed flood, a child 

 could navigate it anywhere. The heavenly beauty of 



Cranberry fruit and flowers 



the shores, with virgin forest of fresh, green spruces 

 towering a hundred feet on every side, or varied in open 

 places with long rows and thick-set hedges of the gor- 

 geous, wild, red, Athabaska rose, made a stream that 

 most canoemen, woodmen, and naturalists would 

 think without a fault or flaw, and with every river 

 beauty in its highest possible degree. Not trees and 

 flood alone had strenuous power to win our souls; at 

 every point and bank, in every bend, were living crea- 

 tures of the north, Beaver and Bear, not often seen 

 but abundant; Moose tracks showed from time to time 

 and birds were here in thousands. Rare winter birds, 

 as we had long been taught to think them in our south- 

 ern homes; here we found them in their native land 

 and heard not a few sweet melodies, of which in far- 

 away Ontario, New Jersey, and Maryland we had been 



