Camped here july 18—
1 Trout 17-1/2 Pounds. II Ouan
anisHes 18-1/2 Pounds. One
Pike 147-1/2 lbs.
There was a combination of piscatorial pride and mercantile enterprise in this quaint device, that took our fancy. It suggested also a curious question of psychology in regard to the inhibitory influence of horses and fish upon the human nerve of veracity. We named the place “Point Ananias.”
And yet, in fact, it was a wild and lonely spot, and not even the Hebrew inscription could spoil the sense of solitude that surrounded us when the night came, and the storm howled across the lake, and the darkness encircled us with a wall that only seemed the more dense and impenetrable as the firelight blazed and leaped within the black ring.
“How far away is the nearest house, Johnny?”
“I don’t know; fifty miles, I suppose.”
“And what would you do if the canoes were burned, or if a tree fell and smashed them?”
“Well, I’d say a Pater noster, and take bread and bacon enough for four days, and an axe, and plenty of matches, and make a straight line through the woods. But it wouldn’t be a joke, M’sieu’, I can tell you.”