At the head of our lake, about a mile from the tent, we stopped and ran the canoe ashore. Joe grunted hoarsely, and splashed the water with his paddle, and, sooner than it takes to tell this, we heard, not two hundred yards away, the most impressive sound that ever comes to a sportsman's ears, the ripping, tearing noise made by a bull moose, hooking the trees right and left out of sheer joy and pride in his strength. He tore down a few cords of saplings, judging by the racket, and then came out, "oofing" at every step, circling around us. In the gathering dusk we saw his great black shape for a moment as he crossed the little stream in which the canoe was hidden. That was the time to have fired, if I had wanted him very badly, but Joe, whose wealth of luck had made him over-bold, whispered, "I bring him close," and emitted a loud roar, very like the squeal of a horse, and the moose never stopped to take one more look. He simply wheeled around behind the fir thicket where he was concealed, and, with a few characteristic remarks in his own language, expressive of disdain and opprobrium, made a hasty departure for a distant section of the country. He acted as though he recognized Joe's voice. "Well, we fright him good, anyway," said Joe.
There was only one other place on our whole subsequent trip where the moose seemed to be so plentiful as right here, close to Lake Kippewa. We had one moose, and had seen that there were plenty more. The Quebec law allows only two in a season, to one man.
I wished to see more of the Kippewa country before going north; so we went back to Mr. Hunter's the next morning, and there met Mr. Christopherson, on his way back to the Grand Lake Victoria, and with him an Indian named Jocko, one of the "Grand Lakers," as Joe called them. Jocko was a thick-set, open-faced barbarian who smiled at the slightest excuse, and who was so pleasant and bright that I am going hunting with him some day if I can. Mr. Christopherson said there would be no trouble in finding our way to the Grand Lake Victoria, as there was a plain trail from Ross Lake, where Joe had been, to Trout Lake, and that on this latter sheet of water were two or three families of Indians who traded at the Grand Lake Victoria, any one of whom could be induced, for a dollar a day, to show us the way.
Joe and I spent another week camping about Kippewa Lake, getting used to each other's paddling, before we started on our northern journey.
It was at this stage of the proceedings that Joe modestly suggested that he had a little nephew, Billy Paulson, thirteen years old, who could do a good deal around camp, and that he would like to take him with us. So Billy went and was happy. He was a versatile little boy. He could read, which Joe could not do, and he spoke English without much accent. I shall not soon forget my amazement when he began, soon after our introduction, to whistle, in good tune, Sousa's "Washington Post" march. How it had reached that far corner of the earth I do not know, and neither did he; but he had it, and with "Her Golden Hair was Hanging down Her Back," as an occasional interlude, he made distant lakes melodious during the succeeding days.
The Old Dam at Barrière Lake.
The next day we took another side trip, to the east end of Lake Kippewa. Joe had been telling of a wonderful trout lake, away up the mountain, and we went to see it. There we found one of Billy's relatives, Johnnie Puryea, and two squaws, catching a winter's supply of trout. They had been there about a week, and had more than three hundred beautiful fish hung up on a frame over a slow, smoky fire. While we partook of Johnnie's trout, such a violent thunder-shower came up, with heavy wind, that we stayed late. It was almost as dark as it could be when we started back over the mile portage to the big lake. There was no good trail, only a few trees being "spotted," and the side of the mountain was furrowed with countless ravines, at the bottom of some one of which lay our canoe. We could not see the trail at all, but kept going down hill, and feeling of every tree we came to for the axe-spots. I suppose we were about two hours making that mile, and I vividly appreciated the force of the expression "feeling one's way." When we finally found the canoe, and the moon came out from under the clouds, the smooth lake seemed, after the storm, to be an old friend.