Although they did not have to make a regular carry between the two lakes, they were obliged, no less than eight times, to take the canoe from the water and drag it around big rocks or places where the stream was too shallow to allow of its passing.
“This is most as bad as a carry,” Jack panted as, for the eighth time, they were obliged to disembark.
“They do make awful long miles up here,” Rex grinned as he lifted the front of the canoe from the water.
“Well, I reckon we’re holding our own,” Bob laughed.
It was nearly noon when at last they paddled out into Churchill Lake. The rain, which had been threatening all the morning, had began to fall as they were dragging the canoe around the last obstruction nearly an hour before, and was now coming down in big drops.
“Guess we’ll have to look for a good camping place and hang up,” Bob suggested.
“Rain heap cold,” Kernertok shivered as he spoke, and Rex, whose teeth had been chattering for the last hour, heartily agreed with him.
They paddled for a few minutes along the shore until Jack spied a good place to make camp.
“There’s just the place,” he declared, pointing. “Right there in that clump of spruce.”
“See if you can find some dry wood, Jack,” Bob said a moment later, as he sprang to the shore and pulled the canoe up. “The rest of us’ll get the stuff under the trees.”