DOWN THE TA-QUA-MA-NON 
I remarked that we would have meat for 
breakfast. | 
“How do you know?” he asked. 
For reply I answered Ely’s signal, then 
stuck my ax into the end of a log and 
started across the river. 
Ely had brought down a fine young 
buck, and by the time we had brought it into 
camp, Garringer had supper all ready. 
So by way of reproof for his lack of faith 
we made him fry some venison steak, while 
we started on what was already prepared. 
There are more or less hardships con- 
nected with trips of this kind, and this 
turned out one of the times that we had to 
take medicine. A few days after this both 
Ely and myself took bad colds, and, from 
the fact that we were thirty miles from no-’ 
where, we were compelled to prescribe for 
ourselves. We gathered some lungwort 
from the maple trees, steeped it, added a 
little brandy, and began taking our medi- 
cine. I improved rapidly, but Ely seemed 
to grow worse. I think he made his 
medicine too strong. Garringer had fully 
recovered from his attack by this time, but 
as Ely continued to grow worse, and the 
weather turned cold, threatening to freeze 
us in, in which case we would be compelled 
to walk out forty miles, we came to the 
conclusion that we had better move up the 
river to the trapper’s shack, where we 
stopped the first two nights; then, if the 
river did freeze, we would only have to 
walk four or five miles across the country 
to Soo Junction. My plan was to take 
Ely and the deer to Sage, send them home, 
and then return for Garringer. The next 
morning I loaded the deer in the boat, 
bundled Ely up, placed him comfortably 
in the boat, said good-by. to Garringer, and 
we started for Sage. We made the journey 
without difficulty; billed the deer, and at 
6.42 P. M. Ely boarded the train for home. | 
The following morning at 6.30 I was 
ready to make the return trip after Garrin- 
ger and our outfit. During the night, how- 
ever, it had turned much colder, and I had 
gone but a short distance when I struck 
ice, a strip six or eight rods long. I broke 
through this with an oar, but went only a 
short distance when J found more.ice.:1 
‘ma-non than on the Sage. 
339 
encountered eighteen or twenty of these 
patches of ice before I reached the Ta- 
qua-ma-non. Upon reaching the mouth 
of the Sage there was clear water down the 
Ta-qua-ma-non as far as I could see, which 
was not very far, perhaps a quarter of a 
mile. I let out a war-whoop, thinking from 
here on I would have clear sailing. After 
rounding the first bend, however, I found 
conditions were really worse on the Ta-qua- 
Nevertheless, I 
stood up in the boat, put my engine up to 
full speed, and, rocking the boat to and fro, 
plowed through the ice for perhaps two 
and a half miles. I was in sight of the 
trapper’s shanty, making slow progress, 
when I discovered a stream of water 
running down from the bow of the boat. 
This time it was a different kind of whocp, 
for I knew what that leak meant—the ice 
had cut through the planking. I got back 
into the stern of the boat to keep her from 
filling, and there I sat for perhaps twenty 
minutes, meditating the predicament of 
Garringer, ’way down there in the woods 
thirty miles from nowhere, and myself 
sitting amidst acres of ice; we certainly 
were up against the real thing. 
I finally came to the conclusion that the 
best thing for me to do was to return to 
Sage. I took one of the oars, broke the ice 
around the boat, so as to enable me to turn 
around, started the engine, set my pump 
to working, as she was leaking badly by 
this time, and started out. The tempera- 
ture was several degrees below freezing, 
and so the ice had closed in behind me 
almost as fast as I passed through it. So I 
had to break ice all the way back, though it 
was fortunately not so thick as when I went 
down. I arrived at Sage at 3.30 P. M., 
loaded my boat and took the evening train 
for home. : 
My one consolation was that Garringer 
would not starve, as we had left him plenty 
to eat. Eventually, he would have to hike 
out forty miles! That was bad. Knowing 
him as I did, however, I thought he would 
rather enjoy the adventure. 
And-he did. What is more, he brought 
out a fine head with him, and we could no 
longer call him a tenderfoot. 
