A TWELVE MILE DRAG.
We soon realized that we were in for hard work.
Mile after mile we dragged the canoes, at one moment plunging into some unseen hole almost to our waists, the next instant striking a ledge with hardly sufficient water to cover our feet while the rain poured in torrents upon us. It was water above and water below, and when we were thoroughly wet, it made little difference from which source it came.
Occasionally we reached water sufficiently deep to float us a short distance, but after a few trials we found it less fatiguing to remain in the stream all the time.
I pulled and hauled until every muscle seemed strung to the tension of a fiddle-string, and before the end of the ordeal I felt like a beast of burden.
So did the others; but we never grumbled. A common feeling inspired us with the idea that it was heroic sport.
After nine hours of toil and discomfort, through difficulties that lasted for twelve miles, we reached the mouth of the stream, and camped at the junction of the Mansungun and Millnoket Rivers, our hardships forgotten in the first sight of the Aroostook waters.
But for the cedar splits protecting the canoes, they would hardly have withstood this rough experience, as the knife-like rocks had left deep impressions on them.
Our rubber bags had shielded our tents and blankets, from the ill effects of the storm, but the Tourograph had been floating unobserved in two inches of water, which destroyed a number of the plates, changing them from the “dry” to the “wet process” of photography.
