770 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 25, 1911. 
a half filled grain sack which, when dropped, 
spelled canned goods, a shotgun and a high- 
power rifle. 
The canoe empty, they hauled it still further 
over the rocks, and then, after some difficulty, 
lifted it to their shoulders, one at each end, and 
started up the trail. They had hardly turned 
the first bend before both came running back. 
Rather furtively they hurriedly picked up the 
rifle, shotgun, wicker basket and hunting boots 
and went back. I heard these dropped into the 
canoe. Fifteen minutes later they returned. 
“Thought you called this a lift-over?” said 
the taller one. “It’s a quarter of a mile if it’s 
a foot. You fellows in this country don’t know 
anything about distances.” 
“May be,” I said, mentally comparing some 
quarter-mile portages I knew with this, “but I'll 
bet even Johnny King’s short legs couldn’t take 
more than 200 paces going across.” 
They did not argue the matter, but placed the 
tent on the wooden box, picked up loose duffle 
in their free hands, and again started across. 
When they returned I had shouldered my pack 
and started. I found their canoe set down 
twenty feet from the water and their outfit scat¬ 
tered near it. Evidently they thought it a case 
of getting a fox, a goose and a pail of corn 
across a river, for I had just set in my canoe 
when they appeared and quickly inventoried their 
belongings. Each had carried a duffle bag, and 
I left them arguing as to who should make the 
fourth trip for the sack of canned goods. 
My plan to go up the Sioux River that after¬ 
noon was changed, when I had paddled out from 
under the hills, by signs of a heavy thunder and 
wind storm due to strike in about an hour. 1 
had a good camping place on a point on the 
“States” side of the lake a mile from the port¬ 
age and paddled to it. Landing, I carried my 
canoe back into the brush, for fear of the wind, 
and then carried my pack to a cleared spot which 
I used as a fall camp. Cedar and balsam sap¬ 
lings afforded ample protection from the com¬ 
ing wind. I brought my tent poles and stakes 
from their hiding place near the bare point, 
where I usually camped in mosquito season and 
made camp. Finished, I walked out on to the 
point to watch the approaching storm. 
My acquaintances of the portage were just 
landing. They seemed surprised to see me, as 
my tent and canoe were not in sight. One 
hauled the canoe out as before, while the other 
lit his pipe. 
“Looks like a storm coming,” prophesied the 
taller, looking at the black clouds rapidly ap¬ 
proaching from the west. Then, glancing at 
the bare point: “Nice place to camp. Guess 
we’ll stay.” 
They began with that leisure that characterized 
their movements on the portage to carry their 
stuff piecemeal to the spot where I usually 
camped. Their canoe was left with the stern 
in the water. The tent was the last thing car¬ 
ried up. Both, hand axes in hand, went into the 
brush, whence they returned, after prolonged and 
petty hacking, with three poles. With much fit¬ 
ting into the tent, they at last chipped the poles 
down to the required length. Slipping them in¬ 
side the tent they hoisted it. One held the 
wavering poles upright in the freshening breeze, 
the forerunner of the storm, while the other 
drove the pegs. The tent was up. wrinkled and 
neither square nor stretched tight, but it evi¬ 
dently suited them, and they began throwing 
their duffle inside as the first drops fell and the 
wind increased. 
Sheltered by the thicket I weathered the storm 
most comfortably and won three out of ten 
games of solitaire. My tent hardly swayed from 
the blasts that passed overhead, and the tor¬ 
rents failed to dampen the cards. 
Toward supper time the rain ceased and I 
cooked my meal. Going out to the point for 
water I saw the taller tourist trying to start a 
fire and the other spreading wet blankets on 
the bushes. Their clothes were clinging to them 
and they shivered in the cold wind which had 
sprung up from the north. Their tent was 
standing, and they said nothing, but the freshly 
torn sod on the windward side of the tent told 
the story of their blow-down. 
After washing my dishes I heard them call 
to me and went over to find them ready to eat 
and with a third place set. I declined the food, 
but accepted a pipe of good tobacco. It was 
supper, but they had coffee. Soda crackers, 
canned beef, canned corn, a glass jar of pickles, 
fried bacon and a tin of butter were the other 
dishes set forth. Their pride in the layout was 
apparent, and they got away with a large quan¬ 
tity of it. 
Both were still asleep when I pulled my canoe 
out of the brush in the morning and left. A 
day up the Sioux, another back, and the evening 
of the third day found me at the north end of 
Little Crooked Lake. I thought I recognized 
the canoe on the shore of the bay behind the 
bare point on which I usually camped, but could 
not see a tent. After pulling my crane, pot 
hooks, tent poles and stakes from the brush, I 
built a fire, started supper and had erected my 
tent when my acquaintances of Loon Lake came 
out of the brush. They were cordial in their 
greeting and hurried to ask if they were on the 
right course. Later that evening, after several 
attempts obviously intended as a cloak for their 
ignorance, they finally broached the subject of 
why I camped in the open when my previous 
camp had been in the brush. They had followed 
my example after their blow-down on Loon Lake 
and were camping in the thick small growth. 
There, with the wind completely shut off, mos¬ 
quitoes had made camping hard indeed for them. 
Acting on my suggestion, they spread blankets 
on the ground near my tent. The next morn¬ 
ing they rolled out as I was eating breakfast 
and reported their first good night’s sleep in 
nearly a week. 
I have never seen them since, but heard that 
fall that they reached Ely ten days later, after 
having been lost for three days on Crooked Lake. 
Another Way. 
Four days after leaving them I was camped 
on an island just off Grassy portage on Nameu- 
kan Lake. It was a bright day, but with a stiff 
wind. I was in no hurry and did not consider 
a mile an hour sufficient compensation for the 
toil of bucking a hard blow out of the west. 
So I smoked my pipe and dozed and day¬ 
dreamed, dug a bean hole, baked some cookies 
in my folding baker, prepared an elaborate sup¬ 
per. disposed of it and washed dishes. Then I 
strolled down to the point to watch the rollers 
surge by and see the sun drop, as it seemed, 
into Rainy Lake. 
I caught the first glimpse of them as they 
rounded an island half a mile to the west. It 
was only the bow of a canoe as it dropped be¬ 
hind one of the big rollers that the stiff pre¬ 
sunset blow was piling up. They were not long 
in coming, but my second sight of them, as 
they crested a wave, told me that they had been 
canoeing in seas like that when I was sailing- 
paper boats in a city bath tub. 
Their canoe was built for such rollers, climbed 
them easily, parted the water quietly and was 
kept dry by the overhanging gunwale and by 
the occasional extra twists and tugs at the 
paddle of the man in the stern and the perfect 
yet unconscious balancing and lifting of the 
bowman. They turned sideways to the rollers 
to clear the point on which I stood, and again, 
as unconsciously and as perfectly, topped each 
succeeding wave and drifted around into the 
shelter of the point. 
They had not varied their long, strong 
stroke, with its quick recovery, from the time I 
first sighted them, and, with a passing nod to 
me, continued on down the lee shore to the 
sand beach where I had landed. Coming up 
sideways, the bowman holding the canoe off 
with his paddle, they stopped. Both stepped 
out into five inches of water, gently pulled the 
canoe up until its side rested on the sandy bot¬ 
tom, and then set their paddles in under the 
thwarts. 
I had walked to the top of the bank and 
watched them unload. The stern paddler was 
tall, broad-shouldered, lean and quick in his 
movements. I did not think him less than fifty 
years old. He wore a gray wool shirt, unbut¬ 
toned at a tanned throat; trousers rolled up 
several inches above his ankles, higher on one 
leg than the other, and a pair of hob-nailed 
cruiser’s shoes, over the tops of which heavy 
woolen socks hung down.- His hat was of wool, 
black and greasy. 
The bowman was his opposite in nearly every 
respect. He was a few years younger. Nearly 
a foot shorter, he possessed a barrel-like body 
and thick cylindrical arms and legs. His back 
was broad and flat and seemed to have been 
built to fit a heavy packsack. lie wore a red 
and black checked wool shirt, buttoned to the 
top; gray wool trousers of the stag style, bound 
around the calf by a tape and buckle. His short 
cruiser’s shoes were neatly laced and showed 
above their tops a uniform inch of gray woolen 
socks. Lie wore a gray felt hat. 
The bowman lifted from the canoe a heavy 
packsack, one that was wide and broad and as 
neatly packed as a drummer’s sample trunk. 
The handle of a full ax stuck from one corner. 
“Lots of tent room, lad?” he asked as he 
started up the bank. He took an affirmative 
answer for granted before it was uttered and 
climbed to the top. A glance took in my outfit, 
and a second approved instantly of a nearby 
clear spot, sheltered from the heavy wind by 
brush that promised tent poles and bed. The 
second glance swept on to some dry jackpine 
stubs. Walking quickly, despite the 125 pounds 
on his back, he set the pack down, took out the 
ax and hurried into the brush. 
Turning to the lake, I saw that the taller 
canoeman had taken out the second pack. 
Nothing else remained in the canoe except a 
carrying yoke. He picked up the canoe by the 
middle of one gunwale and carried it across the 
