We travelled in this way for some time, until we reached the West Branch of the Penobscot, where the driver and his dashing equipage were cheerfully dismissed and we took to the water in our canoes. Thus the last link between us and civilization was broken. The water was very low, and we found ourselves ushered into a difficult passage. This was the dryest season experienced in Maine for many years.
The water courses displayed such masses of huge rocks and uncovered stretches of gravel beds that, at a distance, one would have thought them logging roads rather than the beds of large rivers. Constantly we were obliged to step overboard and lift our canoes over obstructions, and often we sighed for the aid of horse-flesh, of better calibre, however, than that we had just parted with.
After two hours of alternate dragging and paddling we shot into the right bank of the river, and made our first camp half a mile above Moosehorn Stream. Then
“There was hurrying to and fro;”
the baggage was thrown out of the canoes, the latter were drawn up on the bank and overturned to dry; the tents were unrolled, the poles were struck, and two of the guides busied themselves in their erection, while John Mansell woke the echoes of the woods with the resounding blows of his heavy axe as he cut the logs and fuel for the camp fire, and the Colonel and I, seizing our rifles, sauntered forth with sanguinary strides to decrease the population of the forest game in the interest of our first meal. When we returned we found everything under way; the log fire was crackling merrily, before which were squatted the guides on upturned pails. Around them was scattered in picturesque confusion our full culinary paraphernalia, consisting of tea and coffee-pots, kettles, frying-pans, tin cups, bakers, broilers, etc., out of which assortment they were selecting the utensils needed for our meal. They looked like a band of itinerant tinkers.
THE FIRST CAMP.
Tossing Hiram a brace of partridges the Colonel and I, arranging the Tourograph apparatus, obtained a photograph of our first camp. Soon after that supper was announced, after which sleeping accommodations engaged our attention. Going toward our tent we found that Nichols, the Indian, had carpetted it as well as those of the guides with fragrant boughs of hemlock. But our two large rubber beds yet remained to be inflated. The size of these were 36 × 80 inches. The Colonel and I began to devise a plan for swelling them without taxing our physical resources. We soon agreed that the only way out of the difficulty was the arrangement of a match on time between two of the guides. Hiram and the Indian seized upon our proposition instantly, and their rival wind powers were soon tested. Stretching the collapsed rubber bags side by side, they spread themselves flat upon the ground in similar positions, and placing their mouths at the apertures received the signal, and began to blow as if for dear life. The Colonel and I held our time-pieces in our hands, and watched the struggle with amusement. They had both powerful lungs and the bags were soon inflated. As they withdrew from the contest, the veins swelled upon their foreheads like whip-cords, and their fiery red faces glowed with the color of a harvest moon.
THE BEST MAN TO WIN.