The tide was nearing flood, and this was vastly to their advantage in counteracting the river current, and the five miles to Grand Lake was accomplished in an hour.
“Oh, ’tis grand!” exclaimed Andy when the long vista of lake appeared before them.
“Aye,” said David, “’tis that, and that’s why she’s called Grand Lake, I’m thinkin’.”
At the eastern end of the lake, where they entered it, both the northern and southern shores were lined with low hills wooded to their summits with spruce, white birch, balsam fir, and tamarack, the foliage of the latter making golden splotches in the green. Some few miles up the lake the wooded hills on its southern shore gave place to naked mountains, with perpendicular cliffs rising sheer from the water’s edge for several hundred feet, grim and austere, but at the same time giving to the landscape a touch of grandeur and majestic beauty. In the far distance to the westward high peaks in an opalescent haze lifted their summits against the sky.
The vast and boundless wilderness inhabited by no human being other than a few wandering Indians, lay in somber and impressive silence, just as God had fashioned it untold ages before, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man. There were no smoking chimneys, no ugly brick walls, no shrieking locomotives; no sound to break the silence save the cry of startled gulls, soaring overhead, the honk of a flock of wild geese in southern flight, and the waves lapping upon the rocky shore. The air was fresh and spicy with the odor of balsam and other forest perfumes. It was a wilderness redolent with suggestions of mysteries hidden in the bosom of its unconquered and unmeasured solitudes and waiting for discovery.
“It makes me feel wonderful strange—t’ think I’m goin’ in there,” remarked Andy presently, gazing away over the dark forest which receded to the northward over rolling hills, “and t’ think we’re t’ be gone till th’ break-up next spring, an’ won’t see Pop or Margaret or Doctor Joe for so long.”
“Not gettin’ sorry you’re goin’, now, be you?” grinned Indian Jake.
“No, I’m not gettin’ sorry. Not me! I’m wonderful glad t’ be goin’,” Andy asserted stoutly.
“Better not think about the folks and home too much, or you’ll be gettin’ homesick,” counseled Indian Jake.
“I’m not like t’ get homesick!” and Andy’s voice suggested that nothing in the world was less likely to happen.