The House of Cariboo, and Other Tales from Arcadia

“Lucy watched intently a boat pushing out from a bay farther up the shore.” (Page 159.)
BY A. PAUL GARDINER .
Author of “Vacation Incidents,” “The Fifth Avenue Social Trust,” etc.
Illustrated by Robert A. Graef.
A. P. Gardiner, Publisher, New York. 1900.
Copyright, 1900, by A. P. Gardiner.



As the eagle stirs up her nest upon the crags and forces her young over the confines of the inadequate abode, it is then that they spread their wings and soar away to freedom and independence. So is it with the great river of rivers, the St. Lawrence. Born among the Northwest Lakes, and sheltered there for a time, resenting intrusion, it steals away unnoticed from the watershed expanse. Threading its course through the marshes and lowlands, it gathers momentum as it speeds onward, till, the volume growing too great for its confining banks, its waters rebel, and breaking from control, spread forth into the boisterous storm-tossed Erie. Here they are disrupted and buffeted about, driven by the winds and carried onward by a terrible undertow. Now drawn through a narrow, deep channel, swiftly they pass the cities on the shore. Too quickly they are speeding to heed or be disturbed longer by the warring of the elements. Down to the very brink of the awful precipice ahead they charge with ever-increasing speed, then over the Niagara, pouring far beneath into the seething, boiling caldrons.
After surging still onward through jagged, walled raceways, then emerging into a lake of whirling eddies, till finally fought out to exhaustion, the once rampant waters of the tumultuous Erie flow peacefully into the haven of the Lake of Ontario. Here at rest, landlocked by the grape-bearing vineyards of the Niagara and the peach groves of the Canadian Paradise of the West, the St. Lawrence is again reinforced, and again its voyage onward to the sea is begun, this time marked by the dignity of a well-organized body. The blue waters, through their separate channels, glide majestically down their course, passing the islands in their midst with a happy smile and ripples of sunlight laughter. Touching at the wharfs of the numerous cottagers and lapping the white shining sides of the pleasure craft among the Thousand Islands, onward heedlessly flows the beautiful river increasing in strength.