“Do not forget how scantily the camp is provisioned,” said Birger; “we have not had time or opportunity to catch or shoot anything since we left Oxea, where, I am sure, we ate up most of our fresh fish. It will not do to be drawing too largely from our supplies.”
“I have no objection, I am sure,” said the Parson; “but you must let us have one boat, Birger; even if we are to fish this river from the shore, there is half a mile of open space, certainly, between this and the great falls of Wigeland; but best throws lie on the right bank, and we really must have the power of crossing.”
“Well,” said Birger, “I cannot spare you Torkel, that is certain—he is much too valuable; take your own boatman; you may halloo out ‘Kom öfver elven,[8]’ if you want him, and happen to be on the wrong side; and if he cannot hear you, say ‘Skynda paa mid baaten sáa skall du faa drikspengar,’[9] and I will warrant he hears fast enough, deaf as he may be to the first call. We must have one of the boats above this fall,” he continued, musing; “and we may as well do it at once. We will set all hands to launch it over this isthmus, before we do anything else, and then you can use it for your passage-boat. And now for the camp. Tom, Torkel, my own man Peter, my boatman and the Captain’s will be little enough for what I have to do, though there are some good hands among them, as I saw last night and this morning too at Oxea.”
“We must fish, then,” said the Captain; “for there is no use going about after grouse, in this thick forest, without Torkel, or some one that knows the place; we should be but wasting our time, poking about these trees at hap-hazard.”
“And, I am half-afraid that we shall not do much in fishing either,” said the Parson, as they got a sight of the upper reach of the river, which lay calm and shining before them. “The sun is as bright as if Odin[10] had got his other eye out of pledge, and were shining on us with both at once.”
The Captain whistled a few bars of the Canadian Boat Song.
“Yes,” said the Parson, “it is very true, as you whistle, but, though the sun be bright, and, though ‘there be not a breath the blue wave to curl,’ we must try what we can do. It adds considerably to the interest of fishing, when we know that our supper depends upon it.”
“If this were the old Erne,” said the Captain, “we might whistle for our supper, in good earnest; but, it must be confessed, that the fish here are very innocent; we may deceive one; it is not impossible; for, as Pat Gallagher used to say, ‘there are fools everywhere.’ But—look here,” he said, as he cast across the stream, “positively, you may see the shadow of the line on the bottom, deep as the water is.”
“Let us cross,” said the Parson. “‘Gaa öfver elven,’ as Birger says, for I see they have got the boat up: near the great fall there are some strong streams that will defy the sun and the calm together.”