And when the beautifully browned fish were eaten, the pink meat looking so dainty, every one declared that when it came to sweetness, the trout raised in the clear cold waters of Lake Superior had no rival.
But then that is what hungry campers are saying up in Maine, in the Adirondacks, and in various other places where trout abound—they are always the finest in the whole world, when you have your appetite along with you and the odor of supper is wafted to you on the wind that shakes the foliage of the pine and hemlock.
Another day the boys dropped still lower down the Tahquamanon and in doing so drew nearer the place where they would finally launch upon the bosom of the largest body of fresh water in all America, the mighty Superior, well named by the early explorers.
Of course, there were occasionally things that served to break the monotony of the voyage, Teddy and Dolph for instance, managed to bring up on a partly submerged rock at a place where the current was pretty bracing. They came very near having a spill too, that might have been disastrous in so far as losing things was concerned, though they hardly felt as though their lives had been in danger because both boys chanced to be good swimmers, and would have clung to the canoe, which had air compartments fore and aft, and was believed to be unsinkable.
But by dint of some clever work the boys managed to save themselves from this dire disaster, though both called it a narrow escape.
“And after this,” declared Teddy, “me to tie my Marlin to the ribs of the boat with this piece of strong cord. Then if we do go over I won’t have to lose the gun I think so much of. After snatching it out of Big Gabe’s hands, I’d call it a shame now if it went to the bottom of the Tahquamanon River.”
“Huh!” added Dolph, “honest now, I don’t believe I’ll go to all that trouble about my repeater. To tell the truth, I’m not so much stuck on that fine foreign-made gun as I was when my dad made me a present of it. Paid a hundred dollars or so for the thing over in Germany, too. But I’ve sort of lost faith in the thing. Perhaps it was my fault the mechanism didn’t work well; but when a fellow begins to look on his gun with suspicion, he never can enjoy it again. He’ll always be afraid something is going to go wrong.”
“Better keep it until the end of this trip, anyhow,” advised Teddy.