bubbled under the protecting screen on 
steaming bark. 
Supper was served! Standing close 
around the struggling fire we guzzled 
stew and coffee, guzzled to finish the 
stew before the rain, running from our 
hats, made the chow taste like cold 
dish water. 
Deep trenches were dug around the 
tents and the floor cloth tied in tightly. 
Unless the island were inundated dur- 
ing the night we should sleep dry. 
Throwing everything wet outside we 
tied the flaps down and rolled into our 
blankets. 
Ae a rain storm—the soft patter 
of the falling rain on the canvas 
seems to dismiss all problems and 
leaves the mind open to such agree- 
able thoughts that you decide to stay 
awake—about that time you are vague- 
ly surprised to find that the pleasant 
thoughts have become highly colored, 
fantastic and illogical, and you dream 
on till the warm morning breezes flap 
the wings of the tent and a persistent 
fly brings you reluctantly back to the 
land of reality. 
That’s all very nice, but when the 
winds bellow down out of a tumbling 
black sky, lightning rips holes through 
the tanks of heaven, thunder rolls down 
from the hills, the trees rock, the earth 
trembles and the waterproof tent 
strains, cringes and becomes a fine 
calibre sieve under the beatings of the 
continuous downpour. Sure it was a 
good tent—waterproof baloon silk—but 
nothing short of a submarine could 
have withstood that night. 
Bill was always the first out in the 
morning and this morning was no ex- 
ception. With the first gray warning 
in the east, he stirred, rolled over, gave 
a surprised grunt at finding himself in 
a puddle of water, and then remember- 
ing the cloudburst of the night before 
dragged himself and his blanket quick- 
ly outside. There followed another sur- 
prised grunt and a deep enthusiastic 
breath— 
“Ah-h Boy, what a morning!” Then 
in the usual “fire alarm” voice: “Up on 
deck, ya l-a-zy lubbers.” The tent 
shook and sagged to one side — pegs 
came up, the tent 
came down. We 
crawled out—all ex- 
cept Schmidty—into a 
bright new clean 
world glistening in 
the first warming 
rays of the morning 
sun. Blankets were 
thrown over’ bushes 
and the sun set them 
to steaming; the 
camp looked like a 
tenement court yard 
Page 331 

on Monday morning—drying clothes 
on every bush. 
A fire started and a couple of pots 
over it put the camp on a more famil- 
iar basis. A loaf of corn bread was 
baked, while the camp splashed in a 
cool swim that seemed warm after the 
cold soaking of the night before. 
While the clothes and _ blankets 
steamed in the warm sun, we made 
up extra “breads” to carry, sewed up 
torn clothes and socks, waxed tiny 
spark holes in the tent and washed 
underclothes and shirts. 
By noon everything was dry and 
mended. The sun standing high over 
head, we stowed the: dry “junk,” and 
laying the few remaining damp pieces 
over the thwarts of the canoes we 
shoved off down the lake toward the 
distant cut that broke away through 
the hills. The wind still holding from 
the north now dwindled to a light 
breeze that fanned the lake surface 
in splotches and lanes. 
The lake narrowed to a channel that 
hesitated, swung around a low rangy 
hill and began to drop in little jumps 
and riffles. The River Bell was still 
an infant, a thin limbed youth, a creek 
which, when the channel narrowed, 
formed a smooth running “horse race” 
with ‘water to cover the rocks. But 
when it broadened, it left the nasty 
little teeth of the creek bed exposed. 
OME you could ride through with 
your eyes shut—others you had to 
get out and wade over broad pebbly 
rifles. In some places you could pick 
your way carefully from side to side 
always looking ahead to see that there 
was a way out of the channel you were 
following. 
Threading these tittering ripples of 
the upper river compared to running 
the white-tongued rapids of the lower 
reaches is like comparing a jeweler 
tinkering with a watch spring to a 
mechanic overhauling a tractor. 
Here we did not have to worry about 



Typical north country lodge 
the speed and force of a heavy-bodied 
channel of Water. One might think at 
first that the only thing that affects 
the speed of water is the angle of the 
drop—but then the river bed may be 
either rough or smooth—the rough 
bottom acting like a brake unless it is 
too far below the surface. And right 
there is the most deceiving factor of 
all the depth. Often in going up a 
river you will be apalled at the con- 
fusion and apparent speed of a rolling, 
churning stretch of water—and yet 
ride up through it without any great 
effort, while a smooth, dark stretch of 
fast moving water will look like a bou- 
levard but draw you back repeatedly. 
One of my first “climbs” comes to 
mind—on the upper Hudson. I was 
half way up a rapid and resting in the 
V-shaped backwater behind a boulder 
in mid stream. It seemed that the 
momentum of a dashing start, up from 
the tail of my eddy, in combination 
with a few quick, strong strokes would 
carry me up the smooth surfaced glide 
that swished past on either side of my 
rock retreat. I had seen something of 
the real speed of that fast running 
black water in getting across it into 
my present eddy. The tail of my back- 
water was almost fifteen feet long and 
five feet below my former position near 
shore, so that as I shot across the flume 
I had really “dropped” into this eddy. 
It is like a game of chess or the old- 
time “hoss trade,” always shifting for 
a better position or a better horse. 
Now I had to make another sidewise 
six-foot jump to a shoulder of water 
above a cluster of rocks—which would 
offer an instant’s poise before a swing 
across the next current which, while 
throwing me down stream ten feet, 
would shift me into a shore eddy that 
led fifty feet upstream to a two-foot 
falls around which I would lift. 
But I’m still below the rock, the 
water whizzing past on both sides try- 
ing to drag my bow from my tempo- 
rary “cozy corner.” It took three trials 
before I “made the hop.” Twice I cut a 
thin angle from the rock, shot out 
into the speedway, slowed quickly 
and gathering speed backward, 
dropped again into my eddy. It 
was only by putting 
4 everything I had into 
sO the start, then doub- 
3 ling it in a thrashing, 
breathless dash up 
the speedway, that I 
made it and swung 
over into the shore 
eddy, to puff loudly, 
lean on the paddles 
and look back at the 
battlefield, while the 
(Continued on page 
375) 
