1009 
Dec. 26 , 1908 .] 
if ---- 
I 
cadence that blended into the song of the river 
and went on and on down the valley. At in¬ 
tervals, too, the rattling call of a kingfisher, mak¬ 
ing a blue flash across our bow, fell with blatant 
notes upon our ears. 
As we thus loafed along, the river ran swifter, 
the rapids became more sudden and violent, and 
eddies swirled in larger circles. For some miles 
we had our difficulties and we had to sit erect 
and ply the paddles with straightened arms. 
Two dilapidated fish dams were run, and at the 
second one we almost came to grief on a large 
rock close to the surface. Sometimes the gravel 
bars extended clear across the river and we ran 
aground more than once seeking the narrow 
channel that slipped noiselessly over the stones. 
And sometimes the channel divided into narrow 
chutes choked with drift. In one of these we 
had to step out into the current and drag the 
canoe over a half-submerged log. 
These obstructions, however, served to keep 
us aware of ourselves and key us up for the 
chief obstacle of the day. A great tree had 
fallen across a narrow part of the river just 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lance between us and the devouring spirit of 
the water, we plied the paddles vigorously for 
a time. 
But soon we forgave the river for its greed 
and relapsed into our former golden state of 
mind, at peace with all the universe. Toward 
noon we got fairly drunken with the sunshine 
and the breeze. The current was now much 
slower, spreading out in a deep wide channel, 
and paddling had become merely a listless dip¬ 
ping, now on this side, now on that. The canoe 
began to grow too small for us; we must get 
out and stretch ourselves on shore. 
In a leafy nook between two tall chimney 
rocks that rose against a bluff, we bestowed 
ourselves, lunched, smoked and proclaimed all 
things good; especially tobacco and a lively 
river. It was a pleasant hour of the day, and 
we lay there dreamily, conscious of the sun at 
the height of its circuit, the slumbering wood¬ 
land, the soft breathing of the wind and the 
running water that never stopped even for the 
noon hour. 
We embarked again when we had been roused 
the gravel bars. Cows came down from the 
meadows and stood knee deep in the cool water, 
lazily lashing clustered flies with wetted tails. 
A farmer boy perched upon a clay bank above 
an eddy and fished. His salutation barely gained 
a response from the dull beings floating past. 
So on we went, until the rays of the sun 
reached up under our hat brims. Then we re¬ 
membered the necessity of making camp for 
the night stealthily approaching. We were run¬ 
ning through a wide stretch of the valley with 
low, heavily wooded banks. There were no 
open places where the breezes could keep us 
free from the night mists and the insects. So 
we selected a wide gravel bar that divided the 
current just above an abrupt turn of the river. 
We made camp deliberately. The little brown 
tent was hung from a dried willow pole, the 
cooking rods set up, driftwood gathered in a 
handy pile. Then we slipped into swimming 
suits and plunged into the river. The swift 
current of the narrow chute west of the camp 
quickly carried us down to its junction with the 
broad part of the river, and there we essayed 
W 
OUR CAMP ON THE GRAVEL BAR. 
around a sharp turn. We pounced down upon 
it so suddenly that our most strenuous strokes 
failed to carry us full into the free water at 
the end, and the stern, wherein I sat, was swept 
broadside into the branches. We hung there, 
half capsized, with the current sucking and bub¬ 
bling among the twigs and piling up against the 
canoe. The river seemed hungry for us and 
our thoughts were of a grave and somber char¬ 
acter as we struggled with tree and current. We 
were in a ticklish position, but we managed to 
keep our wits, and by main strength we cheated 
the ambuscade and suddenly shot clear, and on 
down stream. 
This attempt of the river on our persons left 
us with a sense of injustice after our close 
brotherhood with nature, and some of the hollow 
notes of Pan’s music were heard in the little 
1 valley. And just as if we must put a great dis- 
by the distant shout of a plowman starting his 
horses to their afternoon’s plodding in the loam. 
On down the river we floated, leaf-like on the 
current. The sun had warmed the breeze until 
it seemed to be the exhalation of some scented 
anesthetic of nature, and our drowse grew more 
intense. 
Screwing up our eyes against the glittering 
sparkle of the water we hazily glimpsed the fat 
green landscape streaming by. The river was 
turned hither and thither by the close-gathering 
hills. The rock faces of the bluffs were painted 
in various and beautiful shades by ages of min¬ 
eral seepage. In the moist clefts, ferns and 
fragile grasses clung, accentuating the browns 
and reds and blacks exuded by the hidden veins. 
Little streams fell into the river here and there 
and added each its small volume to the current. 
Willows, wherein young herons skulked, covered 
to swim up stream. It was a strenuous task 
and shook us from our open-air lethargy. 
We started supper eagerly. Bacon was 
crisped, an omelet was stirred up and the tea 
water boiled. There were twelve strips of 
bacon, eight eggs in the omelet, eight slices of 
bread, a pot of jam and much tea when we 
began. There was nothing left when we had 
done. Hunger had kept us from noticing the 
setting of the sun and the fall of dusk. As 
the shadows deepened across the bar we lit our 
pipes and stretched out on the boat rug, thrown 
on a patch of soft sand. A breeze drifted over 
from the south bank. And as the atmosphere 
was cooled we could feel a pleasant warmth rise 
from the gravel. It was very comfortable there 
in the dusk after the long day on the water. 
With full stomachs and pipes alight, a measure¬ 
less content fell upon us. 
