166 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



guide was in the bow of the canoe. He saw a 

 dangerous rock ahead, and gave proper directions 

 to the man in the stern, but his directions were 

 misapprehended. The result was that while the 

 one was trying to keep the canoe on the shore side 

 of the rock, the other was doing his best to keep 

 the rock on the shore side of the canoe. In this 

 conflict of muscle the frail craft was rushing head- 

 on to the rock at a speed of at least twenty miles 

 an hour. The Indian saw the peril, and with a 

 sweep of his paddle into which he seemingly put 

 the strength of ten men, he succeeded in swinging 

 the canoe inward, so that the bow just grazed the 

 bowlder, while its bulging side came against it with 

 a thud which, but for the elastic character of the 

 birch bark of which it was constructed, would have 

 smashed it into a thousand pieces. It was an 

 anxious moment, for the water rushed downward 

 amid a hundred other rocks with such force that 

 only an expert swimmer could have got through 

 in safety. The Indian was evidently in a white 

 heat with rage, and so, from the fact that I never 

 before heard him use an improper word, I hadn't 

 the heart to chide him when he said : " Albert, 

 don't you be damn fool any more ! " And he 

 wasn't. We shot through scores of rapids after- 

 ward (including the Indian Falls, the worst that I 

 ever saw a canoe pass through and live) without a 



