
RECREATION 
Volume XI. 
DECEMBER, 1899. 
Number 6. 
G. 0. SHIELDS (COQUINA), Editor and Manager. 
Ee WiINIKe Serb Ss TIVAL. 
R. C, FORD. 
It was a perfect day in August and 
the lake scarcely stirred. Now and 
then a breeze came to us from the 
West, but only when Frank, one of 
the guides, pulled at his pipe and held 
the smoking stem toward the sunset 
so that Manitou would breathe on us. 
And when he breathed we smelled 
the odor of the Great Woods. The 
Archean shore we were skirting was 
asleep, and no sound disturbed the 
wilderness, unless a rabbit started or 
an eagle screamed from the clouds. 
For days the canoes had been headed 
South, and it was time: The baking 
powder was gone, the flour nearly so, 
and delicacies were but a memory. 
But no matter, the railroad in 2 days! 
Late in the afternoon the arm of 
the lake narrowed and the shore broke 
up into islands. We began to notice 
a current, and the canoes shot on 
faster, owing to the stream and the 
quickened dip of the paddles to keep 
time to Frank’s voyageur song, 
** Canot d@’ écorce que va voler.” 
Soon the shores narrowed into a 
river, and a muffled roar came up from 
below. Another bend and the river 
dipped, then suddenly dropped out of 
sight. The canoes edged shoreward 
and landed where a portage path led 
off into the woods. We had been 
canoeing 4 weeks, and a portage no 
longer disconcerted or discouraged 
us. We had learned many things in 
a month in the Great Woods; among 
them, that every trail has an end. 
We soon had the dunnage ready to 
pack across the divide, for we wanted 
to camp that night at the other end 
of the portage. When finally every- 
415 
thing was ashore but the big canoe 
and half the party had adjusted their 
loads, bowed their heads under the 
pack-straps and disappeared down the 
path, Luke, the chief guide, gave a 
yell and pointed back up the river. 
There, before our very eyes, we saw a 
big pair of antlers and a gourd-like 
head sweeping across the river with 
mighty strokes. 
“Caribou! caribou!” shouted Luke 
in his excitement, and sprang for a> 
rifle. 
He knelt in the grass where the 
path spread out at the landing place 
and opened a fusillade on the swim- 
ming animal, which then for the first 
time seemed to realize its danger. 
The water jumped in little spurts 
when the bullets struck, and with 
frantic lunges the great antlers and 
head sought the shore. The Win- 
chester smoked and roared, and the 
balls still cut and stung the water up 
the river, but none reached that sway- 
ing head. Those of us who had no 
rifles yelled and threshed around lile 
mad, hoping to disconcert the game, 
and for a time we succeeded. The 
creature turned once or twice as if to 
go back to where it came from; but 
finally we saw its dripping form rise 
up at the bank, then plunge into the 
woods. 
“Canoe! Canoe!”’ yelled the guide, 
and 3 or 4 of us pusted off the big 
canoe and sprang in. Luke stood up 
in the stern and paddled like a demon. 
His Indian nature was aroused for 
once. Off around the island shot the 
canoe. There was still hope of inter- 
cepting the caribou, for it had another 
