CANOEING IN KANUCKIA.
I.
GETTING UNDER WAY.
ALL night the Statesman, the Editor, the Artist and the Scribbler had been rumbling northward in a sleeping car, and as day dawned the steady and quickened clank of wheels told that they were on a down grade toward the Lake, and nearing the point where vacation was really to begin. They had turned into their respective berths somewhere south of Albany; they awoke and looked down from a precipitous hillside into the clear Lake. Presently the train slowed and in another minute they were questioning the station-master about their canoes, which had preceded them as freight some days before.
"No, can't wait till after breakfast. Must see them now."
So the station-master rather reluctantly unlocked his freight room and there in a row side by side lay the "Red Lakers" and the "Chrysalids," for all the world like two pairs of twins tucked in a big bed together. For the station-master—bless him!—had thoughtfully spread a tarpaulin over them so that only their darling noses were in sight.
Mlle. Rochefort at home.