“Cut through it!” exclaimed Charley; “if my sight is worth a gun-flint, we’ll have to cut through a dozen trees.”
Charley was right. The river ahead of them became rapidly narrower; and, either from the looseness of the surrounding soil or the passing of a whirlwind, dozens of trees had been upset, and lay right across the narrow stream in terrible confusion. What made the thing worse was that the banks on either side, which were low and flat, were covered with such a dense thicket down to the water’s edge, that the idea of making a portage to overcome the barrier seemed altogether hopeless.
“Here’s a pretty business, to be sure!” cried Charley, in great disgust.
“Never say die, Mister Charles,” replied Jacques, taking up the axe from the bottom of the canoe; “it’s quite clear that cuttin’ through the trees is easier than cuttin’ through the bushes, so here goes.”
For fully three hours the travellers were engaged in cutting their way up the encumbered stream, during which time they did not advance three miles; and it was evening ere they broke down the last barrier and paddled out into a sheet of clear water again.
“That’ll prepare us for the geese, Jacques,” said Charley, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow; “there’s nothing like warm work for whetting the appetite and making one sleep soundly.”
“That’s true,” replied the hunter, resuming his paddle. “I often wonder how them white-faced fellows in the settlements manage to keep body and soul together—a-sittin’, as they do, all day in the house, and a-lyin’ all night in a feather bed. For my part, rather than live as they do, I would cut my way up streams like them we’ve just passed every day and all day, and sleep on top of a flat rock o’ nights, under the blue sky, all my life through.”
With this decided expression of his sentiments, the stout hunter steered the canoe up alongside of a huge, flat rock, as if he were bent on giving a practical illustration of the latter part of his speech then and there.
“We’d better camp now, Mister Charles; there’s a portage o’ two miles here, and it’ll take us till sundown to get the canoe and things over.”
“Be it so,” said Charley, landing. “Is there a good place at the other end to camp on?”