“Who wonee?” gasped the Indian, as he passed the sleeve of his grey shirt across his perspiring face. The Colonel and I consulted, and not desiring to discourage either of the guides from a repetition of the act we declared the match a tie.
By this time night had set in. But we did not hasten to bed; no, indeed. Stretching ourselves before the big log fire we revelled in the raptures of a scene of which the tourist can never tire—the last wakeful hours of the camp at night, those hours so rife with merriment, so rich with unbosomed anecdote, when the first story, springing from the innocent seed of palpable truth, becomes a prey to those succeeding ones which bear the hideous stain of doubt. Exaggeration is wonderfully prolific. “India-rubber yarns” are told in endless variety, each one being a super-test of the elasticity of the whole. Then some one falls into the error of telling the truth, and his story is howled at as being weak and unpalatable. Finally some one tells the “whopper” of the evening, which bids defiance to retaliation and sends the party to bed in first-class trim for weird dreams. A bomb-shell of this kind from the Colonel was the cause of our dispersal, and exchanging “good nights” we entered our tents. Then, while the camp fire still burned on, while the bark curled from the trunks of the big birch logs, while the cedar snapped with its merry crackle, while the shadows of the leaping flame and smoke danced fantastically upon the ruddy tent walls—we slept.
CHAPTER II.
“A band of hunters were we. All day long
Our feet had trail’d the woods.”—Street.
MOVING ON.—PINE STREAM FALLS.—CHESUNCOOK LAKE AND FARM.—UMBAZOOKUS CARRY.—A DRY GROUND SLEIGHING PARTY.—FURTHER EXPERIENCE WITH THE HORSE.—A GLIMPSE OF DESOLATION.—CHAMBERLIN LAKE.—A VISION.—EAGLE LAKE.—SMITH BROOK.—HAYMOAK FALLS.—TROUT STORIES.
Bright and early the next morning tents were struck, canoes loaded, and soon we were afloat upon the waters of the Penobscot, hoping to reach the mouth of the river by nightfall.
Nightfall?