A desire for sleeping under a wooden roof took possession of us. Carefully concealing the canoe in the bushes by the brookside, we made for a farmhouse near by. We had taken a solemn oath not to sleep in beds. To get the concession of spending the night in the barn, we used diplomacy. After telling who we were, what we were doing, where we were going, and producing our canvas “Saratoga” in proof of our statements, we would say, “If you will allow us to sleep in your barn we will not smoke nor light any matches,” that being the regulation bugbear of the average farmer. Generally, as in this case, the granger had become intensely interested in our adventurous journey by field and flood, and would warmly press upon us the hospitalities of his home. This invitation we invariably declined.
“At peep of dawn we brushed, with hasty steps, the dews away,” and trudging across the meadow, found the small stream now deep enough for our purposes. We moved slowly through beautiful, fresh meadow land along the winding stream, the water clear as the air above it, and varying from five to fifteen feet in width, and of a depth just sufficient for our purpose. The bottom was covered with sawdust from the mill, over the yielding beds of which, as occasion required, we could easily pole our craft. The banks were now open and lined with rushes, ferns and sweet-smelling grasses, and again rose crested with thickly crowded trees, overhanging and enclosing the thread of silver. The brook was in charming harmony with our diminutive bark, affording us uninterrupted enjoyment.
Continuing several miles in this manner, making, it is true, slow but delightful progress, we arrived about dinner-time at Chestertown, a village which, though ten miles from any railroad, is surrounded by beautiful drives, and is on the turnpike to famous Schroon Lake, and other of the less wild and most fashionable resorts of the Adirondacks. It is itself possessed of several fine hotels, containing not a few rich city people, who are content to spend their summers in simply breathing the pure air of this region, and occasionally making a carriage excursion to some of the fine fishing ponds in the neighborhood.
We saved the time necessary for preparing food by making a savage inroad on a civilized hotel dinner, much to the terror of the other guests and the holy horror of the landlord. I believe we paid before sitting down, otherwise, judging from the merits of the case, we should have left with purses as light as our meal had been heavy.
The stream now led through the village, and we were viewed by the inhabitants with as much curiosity as if we hailed from the spirit world. After flattening out for several low bridges, and posing as the “only greatest show on earth,” we found ourselves once more free from the confines and criticism of people and society.
Then we immediately found ourselves surrounded by thick woods. Occasional open vistas showed gently rising hills clothed in harmonious proportions with timber and pasture, and disclosed a fine perspective of lofty mountains in the background, marking the untraveled wilderness. The forest continued for a number of miles—in fact, until we emerged into the Schroon River. Occasionally a duck would fly up just out of reach of the eager revolver, or an animal of some kind would manifest itself by scurrying off through the thick undergrowth before we had a chance to get a glimpse of its form.
Suddenly we came to an obstruction which occupied a large part of the small stream, and though in an alluvial bottom appeared to be a large rock. As we came up with it, to our unbounded surprise this boulder became endowed with motion, and resolved itself into a turtle of huge dimensions. In spite of a shot fired excitedly with rather uncertain aim, it managed to disappear in the water. Although the stream was so shallow, a thorough probing of the bottom failed to reveal the hardshell’s retreat.
Higher ground on the immediate banks of our brook, and a rift which obliged us to wade and float the canoe, warned us that we were nearing the Schroon River. This was entered so very abruptly that we at first supposed it to be a sudden lake-like expansion of the diminutive creek which we had been following.
The Schroon is known among the lumbermen as “Still River,” to distinguish it from the Hudson. At first it seemed to justify this local designation. It flowed sluggishly, the banks were of a rich, loamy soil, and immense forest trees grew close to the water’s edge, or had been undermined by the erosion of the light earth by the slow-moving current.
Soon we were undeceived. An ominous thunder broke upon our ears, at first nothing but a murmur, then for a while it was lost altogether, only to grow louder as we turned a favoring bend, until finally the heavy, sustained roar warned us that we were getting dangerously near to a genuine cataract. We landed, forced ourselves through the impeding fringe of thick, young growth, and carefully making our way out in the stream on a succession of half-submerged rocks, found the fall to be about eight feet high. The descent was at somewhat of an angle, and at one place, a few feet wide, there seemed to be enough water to float a steamboat. But so great was the force, and so problematical our ability to shape our course over this particular spot, and the memory of our recent narrow escape so fresh in our minds, that after due consideration we wisely made a portage.