May 2, tg03.\ 
My torch was smoking ray eyes out, and I couldn't 
breathe for smoke. 
Giving the thing a toss to the front, it rolled down 
somewhere out of sight, and it was as dark as Egypt in 
a second. 
I'll not harrow you with a description of my feelings 
at that time. I guess you can imagine about what they 
were. 
I yelled to Lem again that I was stuck fast and could 
not get back, and he came back to see about it. 
He was in a bad fix as well as I, for unless he couW 
get me out of that hole, he could not get back himself. 
Lem's torch soon appeared at the other end of the 
hole, about six feet away, and he asked me what was the 
matter. When I told him, he had the bad taste to laugh. 
That was the only mean thing I ever knew Lem to do, 
He crawled into the hole, pushing his torch ahead of 
him, and nearly smothered the two of us. He backed 
right out again and came back in the dark. "Give me 
your hand," he said, when he had come up close. He 
nearly pulled the arm off me, but it was no go ; I_ was 
there to stay. Then he said : "Turn over on yoitr side a 
little." Presto! I slipped out of that hole as easy as 
anything. 
May the good Lord forever deliver me from another 
experience like that one. 
There was a kind of a slide from the far_ end of the 
hole down to the floor below, and the rock in it looked 
RS if somebody had chipped out "toe holes" in it; at least 
they were there, and came in mighty handy in getting up 
and down. 
The ladies concluded to remain where they were, and 
not attempt that narrow passage. They called to us to 
"hurry back," and Lem and I went on. 
A hundred feet further on the cave made a right angle 
bend, and got much smaller. At one place we had to get 
down on our hands and knees and creep through. Then 
it opened up again to fair proportions and we came to 
another precipice. Here we found a strange thing. Lean- 
ing up from the floor below and resting against the ledge 
at our feet was a dugout canoe, with notches cut in the 
sides for steps, and it made a very good ladder. 
Up to that time I had supposed that we were the first 
mortals to ever set foot in that cave. It was so far 
away from all inhabitants, and in such a very inaccessible 
place, that I thought that we were in a virgin place. 
That country is almost uninhabited, as we understand the 
term. 
Here before us, however, was evidence that we were 
not the first to enter there. That old canoe had evidently 
been there a hundred years ; there were cracks in the 
sides and bottom of it an inch or more wide, but the 
wood was sound for the most part. 
We went down on this canoe ladder to the floor below. 
The floor all along was strewn with bones of all sizes ; 
some old and black, others fresh with signs of flesh on 
them. We were evidently in somebody's dining room. 
As we went forward we also went downw^ard at about 
a 7 per cent, grade I should think. There was animal 
life all around us; we could hear the scampering of 
small feet, and could hear the scolding and squealing 
of some animals which Lem pronounced rats, but none 
of them came into view. 
As we passed along we noticed a kind of roaring sound 
that had come on us so gradually that we had not no- 
ticed when we began to hear it. But now it had de- 
veloped into a good sized steady roar that filled the 
cave full of sound; we were unable to tell where it came 
from — nowhere in particular, but it got louder the 
deeper we went, until we could hear nothing else. We 
knew it must be water pouring down somewhere, and 
we were keenly anxious to see it. 
As we walked along we suddenly splashed into water, 
and found that the entire floor was covered with it ahead 
of us, but it was so clear and transparent that we could 
not see it in the dim light. We could see the bottom of 
the cave under the water just as plainly as where there 
was no water. The roaring in there was terrific. Talk 
about your thunder storms ! They were not in it. 
Our way was blocked; we could go no further without 
swimming, and from the noise ahead it would not be 
safe to swim very far in that direction. The floor of the 
cave was here covered with pebbles and sand that looked 
very pretty in the water where they were washed clean. 
We gathered some pretty stones there, and while looking 
for others at the water's edge, where there was sand, we 
noticed that the sand was full of little particles of bright 
stuff that looked surprisingly like gold. Indeed, the sand 
was one-half gold. 
We tried to wash the sand out of some of it, so as to 
carry back only pure gold, but could not do it. We would 
take up a handful of the stuff and squat at the water's 
edge and wash away at it ; when the stuff was all washed 
away but a teaspoonful we would find that what remained 
contained as much sand as it did in the start j the gold 
washed away just as fast as the sand. 
There was enough gold there to make us all rich if it 
were gold, and, by George, it looked to me as if it were 
the pure stuff. I really thought we had struck a gold 
mine. I forgot everything else in gathering gold and fill- 
ing my handerchief and pockets with it. 
Lem said it was either gold or mica. I had seen mica 
in the front of stoves; this didn't look like that at all, so 
I knew it must be gold. 
In my eagerness to gather a lot of gold, I stuck my 
torch up in the sand just at the edge of the water; soon 
it toppled over and fell with a splash into the water, and 
went out with a splutter. 
There wasn't very much of it left, so I didn't care 
much, but Lem did. "Come on," he said, "we must get 
cut of here while our torches last, or we will be likely to 
stay longer than we want to." My torch was drifting 
away with the tide, out into deep water, and I was trying 
to get it back, Avhile Lem was impatiently watching my 
maneuvers. "Don't stop for that stick," he said. "It 
wouldn't burn, anyhow; come on, you have all the gold 
you will ever want of that kind," he added, with a grin. 
I expect Lem had his own fun with me on that trip, 
and I never suspected the sly humor that was in him. 
Well, I had about all the goldai sand that I could 
handle, so I was ready, and we started on the back track. 
It seemed a long w^ay back, much longer than coming 
in, but we made gnr-d time and it was not very long till 
we were standing at the foot of the precipice where the 
girls were. Then came that dodgasted hole in the rocks 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1o go through again. I took the precaution this time to 
take off my coat and vest^ and to empty my trousers 
pockets and toss all the surplus up to where the girls 
were waiting for us, then I went through the hole 
easily. 
The girls said that we had been gone a long time, and 
they wrere getting anxious about us, and cold, too. They 
said that the dog had stayed right beside them all the 
tim.e, and would growl sometimes, which made them 
think a lion Avas coming. 
I told them that we had found gold by the wagon load 
down in the cave and that we were all as rich as anything. 
Then I showed them the samples I had in my pockets. 
Then they were excited, and we all hurried out to the 
daylight to see what it looked like. 
The stuff' did not seem to sparkle so much in daylight 
as it had by torch light, hut it was there all right, and to 
me it had a striking appearance of gold. 
I have a bottle of that stuff here in my den; I'll show it 
to you when next you visit me, and if you don't say it is 
gold I shall be disappointed. 
The sun had gone behind the mountain, and it was get- 
ting chilly and dark when we started for camp. Our 
horses were not where we had left them, so w'e started 
toward camp on foot. Soon the moon came up and made 
pretty fair light. We found the horses about half way 
there feeding along. Richard A. Paddock, 
[to be concluded.] 
A Cruise in the O Jib way Paradise. 
In Two Paris— Part Two. 
We made an early .start the next morning, and were 
several miles above camp when Sam said : "There is a 
moose!" We were going toward a marsh and the moose 
was away at the other end, near the woods, but coming 
toward us. The guides drew the canoe up a long, sandy 
beach to the shore. The Doctor took the camera, and we 
all crept into the grass and crouched down. The wind 
was blowing down stream and the moose came on, wholly 
unconscious of our presence. He was some distance to 
our left, but turned and took a course at a right angle to 
the one he had been following. This brought him directly 
in front of us, where he stopped with his side toward us, 
and not more than forty feet away. When the Doctor 
stood up to get a picture he turned toward us, and Sam 
said : "Look out ! That fellow is going to charge." We 
all jumped up ready to run, but the moose turned around 
and followed his own tracks back, till he was a little to 
our left, then he changed his mind, and, turning toward 
us, lowered his head and we saw the hair on his neck rise 
as he started toward us. The length of time it took us to 
reach the canoe was sufficient proof that none of us were 
paralyzed with fear, but I doubt if four worse scared 
people ever lived to tell about it. We were not only will- 
ing but anxious to quit playing in that moose's backyard. 
When we reached the canoe someone looked back to see 
what was coming, but the moose had turned his back on 
us in contempt, and was dcliberatetly trotting off across 
the meadow to the woods. We were very thankful for 
our escape, for the moose certainly had the best of the 
argument, and had it been a month later I fear something 
would have happened. I had never seen a moose before, 
and thought they were the color of an old red cow, but 
this one was a beauty. He was so sleek and black and 
glossy, and had a nice pair of antlers, though they were 
not so very large. He was a two-year-old, and would 
weigh about eight or nine hundred pounds. 
When the moose had disappeared in the woods, we 
pushed off and continued on our way up the river. Ducks 
were very plenty and we shot one for supper. I had 
never gone duck hunting before, and was much surprised 
at the length of time they could stay under water, and 
when they did come up only their heads came above 
v,'ater, and if the canoe was in sight, they were down 
again in an instant, making hardly a ripple. 
The first portage is very short, but we had to step from 
one boulder to another, which is always hard. The next 
portage is quite difficult. In one place we had to climb 
up the face of a cliff and realized the need of empty hands. 
When I saw the place it was a mystery how the guides 
got the canoe up, but they did and instead of being cross 
and surly they came back to assist us lest we should fall. 
The water here slips over the side of the river bed, mak- 
ing a drop of fifty feet over nine ledges or steps, and con- 
tinues "on its way without changing its direction. All the 
way along this river the moose had destroyed the beds of 
water lilies ; there were acres of them pulled out of root 
and tramped to pieces. 
About twelve o'clock we reached the Morrison Falls, a 
regular mountain chute, the water falling fifty feet 
through a narrow, rocky chasm. It is a bit of nature in 
her wildest, most picturesque dress. This part of the river 
IS well worth taking a day to see. Every turn of it is full 
of interest, and very dift'erent from anything seen on the 
regular tourist route. The trip to the Morrison Falls 
and back to Lady Evelyn Lake can easily be made in one 
day, and v/ill well repay the time it takes to make the 
trip. We had crossed the eddy to get a view of the falls, 
and, on our way back to the portage landing, a game 
warden came round the bend, pulled up beside our canoe, 
and handed us his book to sign, all the time looking 
closely over our baggage. He had heard us shooting, and 
thinking we might be killing moose had followed us up 
the river. When Ave told him about the moose, we knew, 
by the beautifully serene expression on his face, that he 
did not believe us. When we were eating dinner he came 
back to fully satisfy himself that we had neither rifle nor 
moose meat. 
When we came round the bend of the river and Bob 
pointed out the portage, I decided that we had reached 
the end of the trip, for it did not seem possible to carry 
a canoe up that rock. I had no doubt about getting down 
on our return, for I could see that if once started we 
would come down whether we wanted to or not. As a 
portage I did not think much of it, but felt sure it would 
make a beautiful toboggan slide if the landing could only 
be improved. 
Sam took the Doctor out to try the fishing while Bob 
and I cooked dinner. Every one seemed to take the cross- 
ing of this portage as a matter of course, so I said 
nothing, but told Bob we would cook as much as we could 
S4a 
- • ■ - ■■ — ■ ^ 
for dinner and there would be less to carry. I found 
some onions in the sack, and, thinking we were doing a 
good turn, we peeled and cooked them every one, but 
learned to our dismay that Sam had put them in for some 
special dishes he intended to prepare. 
The portage was not as hard as I had expected, for the 
rock was rougher and more uneven than it appeared, but 
a climb of fifty feet up the face of a steep rock is not 
exactly easy. When we reached the top of the falls a 
sheer wall of rock rose a hundred and fifty feet or more 
above us. On the top, broken and seamed, were boulders 
weighing hundreds of tons which were balanced, appar- 
ently ready to fall if the wind should bloAv or a bird or 
leaf light on them and disturb the equilibrium. _ We fol- 
lowed the path along the river for perhaps an eighth of _a 
mile and again launched our canoe. Not far above this 
is a portage that Bob calls the Fifth avenue stone pave- 
ment, around a shallow rapids about a twelfth of a mile 
long. The shore on the right is paved with big round- 
topped boulders set as close together as they can be 
packed.' The pavement is a twelfth of a mile long and 
about a dozen yards wide, while the tops of the boulders 
are three or four feet above the surface of the water and 
some distance apart. This is an extremely dangerous 
portage, it is so hard to keep your footing as you step 
from the top of one round boulder to another, and a fall 
with a pack or canoe would certainly result in a crushed 
canoe, if not worse. This pavement is evidently the result 
of glacial action. 
Crossing another portage we were in the Lady Evelyn 
River where it divides, one branch flowing into Willow 
Island Lake and the one we had come up into the Sucker 
Gut. We saw an abandoned eagle's nest on a dead pine 
tree. The top of the tree had been broken off, but the 
stump still rose above the surrounding timber with the 
nest on top. 
We had probably traveled a quarter of a mile without 
making a portage and were getting lonesome, or else 
Satan had found extra employment for us; at any rate 
Sam said: "I would like to shove that rock into the 
river." 
"So would I," said the Doctor. 
"All right," says Bob, "put me ashore." 
The shore on our left was a smooth rock that rose with 
a steep slope twenty-five feet above the surface of the 
water and just on the top lay an oblong boulder, with 
nicely squared edges, weighing twenty-five or thirty tons. 
Bob took the ax and went ashore to shove the rock over 
lhe_ edge so^ it would slide down that smooth surface, 
while Sam took the canoe to the middle of the river, 
where we could watch the performance. Bob went up the 
hill and cut down a small tree to get a stick to use as a 
lever, and gradually working the stone over the edge, it 
started on its downward journey. It came grinding and 
sliding down the face of "the rock, gaining momentum as 
it went, and, on reaching the water, went under with a 
splash, but instead of going down to the bottom with a 
thud, as we expected, it continued on its way, grinding 
and sliding doAvn the rock until directly under our canoe, 
where it quietly settled down. We could follow its course 
by sound under the water just as well as by sight above. 
1~hey all insisted that the rock was so smooth there was 
no danger, but I felt relieved that nothing had happened. 
The river is very wild, in places quite narrow, again 
Avidening until almost a lake that is surrounded by marsh 
Avhere Ave would see ducks and signs of moose. In many 
places the river bed is full of immense boulders, whose 
tops are just a fcAV inches below the surface of the water, 
and some skillful steering is required, especially in swift 
Avater. Bob Avas boAvman, and says he knoAVS all the 
recks now, for the ones Ave missed going up the river we 
Struck coming doAvn. 
After leaA'ing the Morrison Falls Ave made just one 
long portage before reaching McPherson Lake, but 
there Avere five or six short ones and a niimber of 
rapids Avhere Ave walked along the shore, and the 
guides led the canoe through. In the rapids, at the 
foot of McPherson Lake, . we hooked and landed a 
beautiful speckled trout weighing a quarter of a pound, 
but it was getting late and Ave did not try for any 
more. We camped on a point just above the narrows 
in McPherson Lake. This is an old camp ground, and 
Ave had a table with seats, while near the fireplace was 
a low table made by driving four forked sticks in the 
ground, then placing two straight, smooth sticks in the 
forks, one on each side of the table. The top of the 
table was made by drawing a piece of birch bark tightly 
over the sticks at the sides of the table and tying it 
firmly to them, in several places, with cedar bark. 
There was also a register made by cutting a piece of 
bark off a tree and Avriting the names on the white 
wood underneath. When these registers are sheltered 
they last for scA^eral years, for Ave saAv one that had 
been made by a surveying party in 1898, and it was 
still quite legible, though written Avith a pencil. When 
Bob was back in the Avoods getting pine, he picked up 
an arrow with a heaA'y blunt point. They are used by 
the Indians to kill rabbits and grouse. 
Sam skinned and fried the duck and made corn cakes 
for supper, wdiich we enjoj^ed Avith a tin of good tea 
that we always found refreshing. We could see the 
trout jumping in the lake, and after supper went out 
to try our luck. We tried all kinds of ilies and fished 
all kinds of Avays, but did not get a trout. When we 
quit fishing Sam turned the canoe toward the head of 
the lake, and, as it grew dark, the river seemed to be- 
come narrower and the high bluffs on each side to rise 
higher. Moving slowly and noisely along we Avatched 
the transformation until the gorge had become an im- 
mense hallway, doAvn Avhich Ave Avere drifting toward 
the light in the western sky, that glowed through the 
opening at the other end, like the light from some 
vast aerial space. A streak of light, reflected here and 
there on the Avater, increased the length of the hallway 
and made the opening seem miles and miles away. We 
were drifting down the Corridor of Time and were in 
sight of the Gates of Eternity. It was a dream of 
childhood. 
Sam turned the canoe and Ave Avent back to camp, 
where Bob had a good fire burning, and Ave sat around 
the fire. In the night Ave heard a far-off moaning cry, 
which Avould increase and then die aAvay. We were 
all aAvake, listening intently. It grcAV louder and 
louder, until we could hear the hunting cry of a pack 
