"Ask your uncle to let me take you to Tamarack Lake. It's much wilder than this, an' there's good fishin'. If you want to tramp, you can go gummin'; that's about all that's goin' on at this season. An' if you don't want to keep the gum, you can give it to me; spruce gum's worth fifty cents a pound in Chateaugay village."
Tamarack Lake, or Pond, was little known and seldom visited; a dense growth of tamarack-trees on its shores gave it a gloomy, wild appearance. The friends and their guide reached it early in the afternoon, and Antoine at once set to work to repair a little bark "lean to" which he had built on a former visit.
That evening by the light of their fire Antoine made a "gumming-pole" for each; this, as Antoine made it, was a stout pole about eight feet long, to the end of which was firmly fastened a small coverless tin can. It was a simple instrument; but Antoine assured the boys that this was the best kind—much better than "the new-fangled poles you buy at the store."
He added, to encourage them, "Spring is when the gum breaks off easiest, an' we ought to get a big lot of it."
During the forenoon the boys staid near the camp, amusing themselves by fishing and by gathering gum from the spruce-trees growing near by.
A large brook ran into the lake, and in the afternoon they decided to follow this brook back into the woods. As long as they kept the stream in sight there was no danger of getting lost. They started off, each carrying a pole and having a gummer's bag slung from his shoulder. For an hour or more they pushed on together, gathering gum as they went. Finally they came to a place where the brook forked, and here they decided to separate, each taking a branch of the stream.
"We can't get lost as long as we keep by the brook, but don't go too far, for night comes on quickly in the woods," said George, as they parted.
Arthur went on alone very contentedly; he was beginning to enjoy the woods and appreciate them. As he followed up the brook he found himself in a rocky ravine, a wild place where the stream tumbled over great bowlders or—being swollen by the melting snows—-spread into a pool. On the bank of one of these pools, which must have been eight or nine yards across and four or five feet deep, grew a tall hemlock. In the air near its upper branches two hawks were circling. At short intervals they screamed as if in anger and distress.
Arthur looked more carefully, and could now see their nest. His pleasure in the woods had put him in an unusually adventurous mood, and he decided, on the impulse of the moment, to try to secure some of the hawk's eggs; they would be interesting mementoes of his trip to the lake.