THE OOLOGIST 



57 



lake. They marked the channel for 

 the larger boats, and as we approach- 

 ed dragging our boat against the 

 waves, the water became deeper, so 

 deep that we could not manage it. We 

 were lifted off our feet with each 

 large wave. While thus tusseling 

 with nature which surely got the best 

 of us this time, we heard the hurried 

 puck of another launch. They had 

 spied us from the shore up the river 

 some half a mile and were coming to 

 the rescue. The life saving crew of 

 Washkish towed us into port at just 

 two p. m. What a fitting wind-up for 

 that peaceful, monotonous journey, 

 along the quiet waters of the North 

 shore. It seemed that every day 

 brought new and more glorious ad- 

 ventures. 



We found here quite a town, a well- 

 stocked general store, an auto, a town 

 hall with a piano, a pool room, a post 

 office, a house or two, and a farmer 

 with a wagon We learned that we 

 were just off the Reservation at this 

 point and that home-steaders were oc- 

 cupying the more desirable land to 

 the east, end of the North Lake. An 

 auto road led over the bridge across 

 the river to Kelliher, the nearest 

 railroad town some twenty miles dis- 

 tant and Uncle Sam had established 

 a mail route to this point. This was 

 our first chance to drop a line home 

 although it had to travel a rather 

 round about way to get there. We 

 found the Tamarac River to be a fine 

 deep stream of water carrying in more 

 water than the Red Lake River was 

 taking out. The surface evaporation 

 on Red Lake of course is enormous. 

 Here some large muskilounge are 

 caught weighing from twelve to thirty- 

 two pounds and although we did our 

 best during our short stay to land one 

 of the big fellows, the largest we were 

 able to hook was a twelve and a half 

 pounder. It was a fine river to travel 



up by boat, float down and cast as you 

 floated for it was quite free from 

 snags and weeds. That evening we 

 gave a concert in the town hall with 

 piano, saxaphone, cornet and voice. 

 We certainly had a good time and all 

 the town turned out for it was all 

 free. We were invited by the store- 

 keeper to sleep in their spare bed, and 

 although at first we had some misgiv- 

 ings, we have said since that we found 

 a real home that night and we enjoyed 

 it, too; togged up in the best we had, 

 shaved, scrubbed, cleaned up and went 

 out into society. 



The next forenoon the wind out on 

 the lake still tossed the waves at will 

 so we could not venture out. We tried 

 at noon but came back. We tried 

 again at four p. m. and came back 

 again. At six, however, the waves 

 quieted as the wind began to go down 

 and we ventured forth much to the 

 disappointment of our new friends 

 who wanted us to play another concert 

 that evening. But we were now be- 

 hind schedule and feared we would 

 not make the Agency by Sunday. We 

 had hoped that the wind would cease 

 to blow altogether as the night came 

 on and had dreams of a placid surface 

 with a moon and clear sailing on the 

 last lap back to the Narrows where 

 two nights before we had camped on 

 the west point. But the wind seemed 

 to raise and as we went down the 

 east shore the waves grew larger. We 

 had to keep a great distance out from 

 the shore because of the shallow 

 water. At seven p. m. we sighted 

 Shotly and decided we would go no 

 further in such shallow water and the 

 ever increase wind by night. We 

 pulled in, dug deeper the channel of 

 a small creek, pulled our boat into 

 the sheltering bay and put up for the 

 night. A young lad of seventeen came 

 down to the shore to help us. He was 

 a good talker and spoke his mind 



