the shove and dipped out over 
—with a gun if necessary; but a look 
at the sun warned us that the pots must 
be started bubbling soon or it would be 
a “black” meal. 
FL BE. sun drops rapidly when it gets 
down towards the hills and we be- 
gan to scan the shore line for an open- 
ing. Thick unbroken bushes crowded 
the 
water. Back of them a heavy tangle of 
vlack spruce and then the lordly pines 
of the north. An island presented the 
same unbroken shore line until we 
rounded into the lee and a_ shallow 
sandy beach curved back into 
the island cuddling a quarter- 
mile bay. 
We were forty miles out 
from Kipawa, the lumber camp 
from which we started, and 
950 miles of a questionable 
route lay before us to Bucking- 
ham on the Ottawa. Seven 
malcontents from New York, 
we had two months to go— 
four college men, an electri- 
cian, a Wall Street man, and 
a man of leisure. 
Ke population seven- 
teen (when everybody was 
home), passed the revealing 
statement, in the utmost kind- 
ness of spirit, that we were 
“dam’ fool city fellers” and ad- 
vised at least two guides “to 
take keer of us.” Well, we still 
had our appetites, with beans 
in the duffle to satisfy it, and 
open water before us for the 
morrow. 
The beach was backed by a 
slight slope to a natural clear- 
ing. A scattered growth of 
wrist thick aspens dotted the 
low sweet fern carpet, furnish- 
ing poles for the tents and the 
pots. Water was in the lake; 
fire wood was plentiful. 
The canoes were drawn up, 
the packs brought to the clear- 
ing, pots tumbled out for use 
and the tents went up. Seven 
men, each doing something, stick a 
camp up quickly, and soon the pots 
were simmering, a pile of wood cut 
ready for the fire and a path made to 
the beach. In a few minutes’ trolling, 
Doc had picked up two eight-pound pike 
and now he stumbled up from the beach 
with hands full of pike “steaks” drip- 
ping and white from a quick cleaning 
at the lake shore below camp. 
COATING of flour and corn meal 
and they sizzled into the pans. The 
pots bubbled and steamed—the rice 
ready for washing—the peas coming to 
a creamy consistency with islands of salt 
Page 147 
UNSHAVEN AND UNSHORN, 
DOM OF AN 
WHITE-CCLLARED BONDAGE. 
EYES MODESTLY 
pork floating and then diving slowly 
beneath sluggish bubbles. The prunes 
were boiled down to a sauce, and the 
aroma of coffee anchored you to the 
clearing. 
THE long shadows of night closed in 
to the circle of light cast by the fire 
now backed by two deep fire logs, and 
the circle of hungry humans closed in to 
load deep plates with rice and pork and 
peas. The pike steaks were piled into 
one pan and the other pan started the 
other lot sizzling. 
As few words were uttered as pos- 

OPEN-FRONT SHIRT HAS 
DOWNCAST, 
SHOULDER OF HIS COMRADE. 
sible. “Shoot me that pot of peas— 
Gimme your knife a minute—Coffee, 
please.” Man! how that nourishment 
did disappear, and Schmidty scrapped 
the last spoonful of peas. Bill, the elec- 
trician, leaned back and dragged out his 
pipe, “Come out of it, Schmidty, you’ve 
had enough.” 
Schmidty pulled his head out of the 
pot. “Wat cha tink I am, a canary?” 
he gurgled, dropping the last spoonful 
behind his teeth. 
He was six foot two and had a cheer- 
ful disposition and an appetite in direct 
proportion to his height. 
“Say, did you ever get hungry, 
THE COMFORTABLE FREE- 
REPLACED 
THE AUTHOR, WITH 
1S LEANING ON 
Schmidty?” Bill continued. Schmidty 
paused with the frying pan in mid-air. 
‘“DOEAL raving hungry?” Bill urged, 
lighting his pipe and taking a 
premonitory puff. 
Schmidty squinted an eye. ‘“‘No,” he 
said, “and I don’t expect to.”” He smiled 
and smoothly flipped the last pike steak 
into his pan. “You see, my dear, there 
are two things I’m going to get on this 
trip—”’ 
“You’re going to get hurt if you don’t 
pull in your feet,” grunted Marcy. “I 
can’t see the fire.” 
Schmidty ignored the indi- 
vidual but pulled in the offend- 
ing extremities, propping them 
in front of himself and holding 
his arms about them. “Yes, 
my dears,” he smiled again at 
Bill, “there are two things I’m 
going to get on this trip—” 
“GAY, -Schmidty,” — Cleve 
rolled into his blanket and 
propped himself against a loz 
— “T’ve often wondered; I 
should think that such long 
legs would get in the way in 
street cars?” 
“Don’t interrupt your elders, 
m’boy—I find them very con- 
venient at a dog fight. Yes, 
there are two things—” 
He stopped and peered out 
into the darkness pressing 
close upon the circle of light 
from the bed of coals. From 
the still dark regions of the 
lake there came a faint, far- 
away howl, long drawn, sin- 
ister, disquieting. Wolves are 
practically extinct in the east- 
ern parts of Canada, it was 
probably some Indian mongrel 
that had reverted to the wolf 
blood in his veins and broken 
away from the beatings and 
starvation which are his re- 
ward for -the heart-breaking 
work of the trails. Butit wasa 
lonesome blood-curdling sound 
and Bill leaned forward to stir 
the coals to new life. The flames 
sprang up and the circle of light 
pushed back into the trees. A faint 
whistling note played up and down, 
now loud and then dying to a thin, sil- 
very, insistent thread of sound like the 
whistle of a peanut stand or the first 
steam of the radiator on a cold morn- 
ing. 
THE 
AP bubbled from the ends of burn- 
ing sticks which, slowly burning 
through, broke and sent up a shower 
of sparks. 
Schmidty looked nervously over his 
(Continued on page 1838) 
