THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
303 
on the side each time, and I still paddled partly as if in 
the stern. He then wanted to see me paddle in the stern. 
So, changing paddles, for he had the longer and better 
one, and turning end for end, he sitting flat on the bot¬ 
tom and I on the crossbar, he began to paddle very hard, 
trying to turn the canoe, looking over his shoulder and 
laughing, but finding it in vain he relaxed his efforts, 
though we still sped along a mile or two very swiftly. 
He said that he had no fault to find with my paddling in 
the stern, but I complained that he did not paddle accord 
ing to his own directions in the bows. 
Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Pe¬ 
nobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected 
and assorted. 
As we drew near to Oldtown I asked Polis if he was 
not glad to get home again; but there was no relenting 
to his wildness, and he said, “ It makes no difference to 
me where I am.” Such is the Indian’s pretence always. 
We approached the Indian Island through the narrow 
strait called “ Cook.” He said, “ I ’xpect we take in 
some water there, river so high, — never see it so high at 
this season. Very rough water there, but short; swamp 
steamboat once. Don’t you paddle till I tell you, then 
you paddle right along.” It was a very short rapid. 
When we were in the midst of it he shouted “ paddle,” 
and we shot through without taking in a drop. 
Soon after the Indian houses came in sight, but I 
could not at first tell my companion which of two or three 
large white ones was our guide’s. He said it was the one 
with blinds. 
We landed opposite his door at about four in the after¬ 
noon, having come some forty miles this day. From the 
Piscataquis we had come remarkably and unaccountably 
