A CANADIAN RIVER 139 



"did Mr. Woodman say?" "He said," 

 replied Noel, " for me to come in and have 

 a glass of whisky," and with this oracular 

 utterance my story must end. 



Many years after I had said good-by to 

 the Cascapedia, I happened on a warm June 

 evening to be passing through the back 

 garden of a London house, in which half a 

 dozen grimy trees were struggling into leaf 

 amid a dingy and depressing environment. 

 Suddenly something took me away from 

 London and back to Canada and to the 

 river. What was it? There was a reason. 

 One of the trees was a poplar, a balsam 

 poplar; there were the sticky buds and the 

 aromatic and intoxicating scent. For a mo- 

 ment I seemed to see the old sights, to smell 

 the old smells, to hear the old sounds — the 

 rush of the rapids, the perfume of the forest, 

 the clinking of the iron-shod poles, as the 

 canoe forged its way upwards to the Middle 

 Camp or to Lazy Bogan. 



