“O. K., I bet!” answered the Italian boy. “Say, maybe I catch some bullheads in Lake Moosehorn, and if I get more than fifty, I give you one to eat in your honor!”
Dirk laughed, not because the joke was good, but because he was well fed and warm and happy to be with such a game crowd of campers. Although the rain might have dampened the holiday moods of many boys, not one of these lads had uttered a word of complaint. Later that eventful day, Dirk was to look back wistfully at that scene; for neither he nor Brick Ryan was fated to partake of that contemplated meal of fish and spaghetti on the shore of Lake Moosehorn.
Refreshed and rested, the boys broke camp and prepared to leave the broad river behind. Dirk recalled that this stream they were now following must be the Sweetwater Creek shown on the map that Sagamore Carrigan carried in his breast pocket. If so, it would lead to the first of the Chain of Ponds, where the first portage would begin.
His surmise was correct. Close together, their bows sometimes brushing overhanging limbs of trees as they rounded a bend in the creek and a new reach of rain-spattered water met the paddlers’ eyes, the three canoes wended up-stream. On either side the walls of the forest closed in about them, and in some places it was as gloomy as though it had been nightfall instead of broad afternoon. Before two miles had slipped past their dripping paddles, the creek ended in a rough dam of logs that marked the outlet of the lowest of the ponds; and here was the first portage.
It was a short one, merely circling the dam and so to another launching on the dark mirror-like water of the pond. The boys landed and hauled their canoes ashore; then, without bothering to remove the contents, they each seized an end and carried the craft up a narrow trail, slippery with weeds and mud, to the edge of the pond. Once more afloat, they pulled through the dripping rain in the rippling wake of the Red Fox. Dirk, brushing the drops from his glistening face, wondered how the leader could find his way through the winding passage. Reeds and ugly, misshapen snags jutted upward from the murky, black bottom covered with dead leaves, and somehow brought a chill to the boy in the canoe, so close were they beneath his paddle. He wondered what would happen to any daring soul that might try to swim in the dark forbidding water.
Sagamore Carrigan knew his way, however, and unerringly came out at the end where the next portage began. This was a long one, for these two ponds were connected only by a swampy trickle that wound across hummocks of mud. For half a mile the boys threaded through the ankle-deep muck; and though the councilor sent Spaghetti Megaro back to bear a part of the overburdened Sachem, Dirk was ready to call a halt before a third of the way had been traversed. Gritting his teeth, he tried to forget the cutting, swaying load pressing his aching shoulders, meanwhile thanking his stars that his shoes were strong and waterproof.
By the end of the afternoon all the trailers, although they would not have admitted it under torture, were heartily sick of ponds and portages. Everlastingly climbing in and out of the vessels, slipping and sliding through an overgrown footpath with one end of a staunch canoe on one’s shoulder and dripping branches catching at garments and whipping into one’s face, all in a semi-darkness that depressed the heartiest spirit—it seemed to all of them that they could not last out another hour of this winding progress through the lowlands, when from the van came Sagamore Wise-Tongue’s cheering cry: “Lake Moosehorn ahead!”
The broad expanse of clear water uplifted the souls of all. Dirk, feeling glad that reeds and snags and winding dark ponds were left behind at last, threw himself on a grassy bank beside his canoe, breathing a sigh of relief. It was late in the afternoon and the rain had slackened to a filmy drizzle. Across from them loomed the hump of Flint Island, while over the tree-clad summit of Mount Kinnecut toward the west, the descending sun was bravely trying to show forth before sinking into night.
“We’ll be pitching camp inside an hour, men,” said the leader. “Our headquarters will be at the old spot at the far end of the lake, up by that tall dead spruce. From there we’ll have to use our feet instead of our paddles, to make the summit of Kinnecut.”
“Huh!” remarked Ugly Brown. “I’ve been usin’ my feet all day. I don’t mind hikin’, if I don’t have to carry a canoe with me. Why, after today, I’ll probably race up to the top of that little mountain tomorrow just to get an appetite for breakfast!”