Fleet, who had been rummaging in his canoe, was returning and the boys turned the talk into other channels.
They decided to make the rest of the canoe trip by easy stages, so starting early the next morning, they stopped off at Prescott for supplies, and continued on along the north shore to Brockville, where they had dinner.
After leaving Brockville, so many little islands dotted the surface of the river that the boys began to believe they were approaching their destination. These islands continued at intervals all the way to Rockport, fronting which city, late one afternoon, they sat in their canoes, viewing the famous summer resort of the St. Lawrence. The Thousand Islands lay before them, many dotted with cottages and tents, others, too small for comfortable living, uninhabited.
Somewhere out among those islands the boys were going to camp, and they could hardly wait until morning to set out in their quest of a suitable spot.
To those boys not familiar with the location of the Thousand Islands, it may be well to say that they spread out from the waters of Lake Ontario on the southwest to a narrow stretch of the St. Lawrence on the northeast, some thirty-eight miles distant, forming a chain, or archipelago, through which the clear, bright waters of the river go racing swiftly. They are composed of islands of all sizes, from a surface no larger than an ordinary dry-goods box, over which the water moves, to that of a substantial size, several miles in circumference, containing some villages, and, in one instance, an inland lake—the Lake of the Isles.
Hundreds of the islands contain no habitation, but stand, their rich, loamy surfaces covered with trees, in whose branches birds come to build. These islands remain undisturbed, save when pleasure seekers from some more populous center push their boats into the quiet reaches of their waters on a summer’s day.
There are really many more than a thousand of the islands, the lowest estimate being fifteen hundred, the highest eighteen hundred. And flowing in between them, winding this way and that, the river is limpid, fast-moving and deep, the depth varying from thirty to sixty feet.
The delights of the region had a strong grip on the young canoeists when, after a night spent in Rockport, they set out in the early morning in search of a lonely isle, where they could rest in peace and comfort for a few weeks, enjoying boating, fishing or reading, as the case might be.
In and out among the many channels they went, paddling with slow, easy strokes, now going against a strong current, now with it, until, finally, they found innumerable little islands stretching on all sides, none of which were, apparently, inhabited.
It is a law commonly observed in the Thousand Islands that camping privileges upon any of the uninhabited islands are free, so the boys began to look about for a good-sized island which would meet their approval from every standpoint.