After the storm passed, it became necessary to circumvent or run the dam. It was a logging dam, some eighteen feet in perpendicular height, and offered extraordinary inducements for running, but with a little too much risk, so the boats were laboriously passed one by one over the wing of the dam, and found themselves at the head of a superb rapid which swept beneath and around a rocky cape, and quickly carried the fleet beyond the ken of the little forest settlement lying around the mill.
If possible the scenery below the mill was more picturesque than any previously seen. At one point the woods were on fire, and for a few hundred yards the smoke was so thick that progress had to be made with extreme caution, as the current was swift and the channel full of rocks. At another the stream wound slowly between wood-crowned cliffs, whose geological nature severely taxed the scientific attainments of the expedition, and tempted a long sojourn, while the Artist vainly essayed a realistic sketch of the strangely convoluted strata, which made the face of the cliff so wonderfully expressive of the elemental strife and torture that must have shaped it in some by-gone age. So with alternating reaches of swift and still water, the lovely stream coursed downward, bearing the fleet only too rapidly toward its junction with the larger river. One more night was passed among the spruces of its rugged shores, and shortly after the next morning's start it became evident that the forest stream was preparing to fulfill its destiny in driving the saws of a great mill. Houses straggled along the bank, and presently the fleet was feeling its way among logs and booms to a landing place. A few hours sufficed to procure transportation around the beautiful falls, and by sundown the squadron was making camp as usual on the banks of a broad placid river, which to all appearances was the same which it left a few days before. Here was Acadia again, and something of a mental effort was necessary to realize that it was another Acadia from that wherein the first æon of the cruise had passed. The vesper bell sounded as before, the lumber laden barges drifted as lazily as ever, and the villages named after unheard of saints dotted the banks in close succession, and the roar of rapids was no longer to be heard.
XV.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
IT had been something of a relief to stow masts and sails compactly away for a few days, and now again it was an agreeable change to be once more under canvas and see the slender masts bend and spring before the breeze.
In the course of a day's sail the river narrowed perceptibly, as rivers are wont to do as they near their outlets, and the various members of the expedition, having noted the fact, proceeded, each in his own way, to discover the cause thereof. A melancholy howl (learned from Garibaldians in Italy) by the Vice, who was always in the rear, was rightly construed by the occupants of the Red Lakers (in the advance) as a sign that the Vice wanted to light his pipe, so the Cook, who by virtue of his official position was custodian of the expeditionary matches, lay to until the Vice came alongside.
"The river," remarked the Vice, between puffs, "is narrowing—every mile. Suppose it—should keep on—doing it for—fifty miles more; it—would close entirely before—it reached the—ow!—(here the flame of the match reached the Vice's fingers)—reached St.—the devil, oh!" for the Vice had dropped the still blazing fragment upon his bare foot.
"No such saint in any calendar but that of politics," said the Cook reprovingly.
"The St. Lawrence, I meant, of course," said the Vice: "the devil isn't recognized by any party at all."
"I suppose not," answered the Cook, who had dropped into a dreamy reverie. "The true workers in this world are never recognized by those who are most entirely dependent upon them."