The lake was smooth and paddling was easy. They sang as they bent to their paddles, as voyageurs of old. Soon they came to the mouth of the narrow river and ran in between the high banks. The current was strong and the paddling immediately became harder work.
“I bet Slim loses five pounds on this trip,” called out the Captain. “See him perspire!”
“I’ll bet he gains five,” answered Katherine. “Working hard will give him such an appetite that he’ll eat twice as much as he usually does. Too bad we didn’t bring that thermos bottle; he will be wanting some nourishment very soon if he keeps up at that rate.”
Slim heard the jokes at his expense being tossed back and forth over his head, but his exertions had rendered him too breathless to say a word of protest.
They passed the place where Uncle Teddy had called the moose with the birchbark trumpet on the occasion of the Calydonian Hunt. “Why don’t you call another moose, Uncle Teddy?” asked Sahwah. “I should think there would be lots of them around.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Uncle Teddy. “This is a bit too far south for them. That other moose 92 probably didn’t live in these woods; he was just traveling here; spending his vacation, probably. And, like a good many of his human brothers, he didn’t take his wife along with him. There were no signs of another.”
“He would have done better to stay at home with his wife,” remarked Aunt Clara, “and then his head and his hide wouldn’t be over in St. Pierre now, getting respectively mounted and tanned.”
“Mercy, but this is hard pulling,” groaned Katherine, as they went farther and farther up against the swift current. Those up in the forward boats thought the same thing and the paddles were not dipping with anywhere near the briskness and regularity with which they started out.
“This won’t do!” shouted Katherine, making a trumpet of her hands. “We look like a row of lame ducks limping along. Get some style into your paddling. Let’s sing and paddle in time to the music.” Her voice cracked as usual and Gladys had to start the chorus:
“Pull long, pull strong, my bonny brave crew,
The winds sweep over the waters blue,
But blow they high, or blow they low,
It’s all the same to Wohelo!