After a few days' journey they leave the main stream and go up one of its branches. Here they come to a place where the stream widens into a lake. The water is very still, and as the fishing is good, the Indians camp here for a week and rest. There are so many wolves and wild cats in the woods that Otelne puts up the tent on a little island out in the middle of the lake.
For many days they go on upstream. Over and over again they have to carry their goods around rapids. The dark branches of spruce, hemlock, and fir trees often hang over the stream.
Trout, pickerel, and other fish dart in behind the rocks around which the currents flow. Sometimes a muskrat, a beaver, or an otter swims quickly into his hole in the bank. But sometimes the rifle is too quick for him and the Indians have fresh meat for supper. Each day they pass the mouths of little streams and the main stream gets smaller and smaller, till at last it is hardly more than a brook.
They are busy nearly all the time carrying their supplies around rapids. At last they can go no farther in the canoe because the stream has grown too small and rocky. To go still farther in their direction, the Indians must find a stream which flows the opposite way. To find this stream they must cross a hill, because, you see, the water will run down the hill on the other side, gathering more and more water, and getting larger as it goes. This water parting is called a divide, or watershed. There is such a divide at the top of every mountain range. For instance, all the rivers flowing east of the Alleghany Mountains run east to the Atlantic Ocean; all those flowing west run finally into the Mississippi River. So the Alleghany Mountains are a divide.
Otelne knows of one place where the streams bend in such a way that he can, in an hour, carry his canoe from canoe-water on one stream to canoe-water on the stream over the hill. The Indians know where these good portages are just as country boys know where they can catch rabbits, or as city boys know where they can find a place to play. For many days, Otelne steers his canoe down stream, camping on the bank each night.
In late October the first snow falls. They camp beside the lonely river, and the fur hunting begins in earnest. Otelne fixes a round of traps. He starts away from his tent and makes a large circle in the forest, fixing a round of traps as he goes. When he cannot see the sun, he keeps his direction through the forest by noticing the moss which grows only on the shady side of a tree trunk. He can keep his direction at night, too, if he can see the stars, for long before white men came, Indians had noticed that one star always seemed to be in the same place. They call it the "Great Star". We call it the "North Star". The pointers in the Great Dipper show us where it is. Otelne watches them every clear night.
Twenty miles he travels, setting his traps wherever he sees in the snow the tracks of the animals he wants. He drags sweet-smelling meat along the snow, hoping that animals crossing this trail will follow it to the traps. After a day or two, he goes around again, putting fresh bait on his traps and taking out the animals he has caught. After several rounds, he finds that game is getting scarce here, so he and his wife put the tent and all their things on two toboggans (sleds), tuck the baby down in the blankets, and trudge all day through the forest. When night comes they put up the tent on the snow, cut evergreen boughs to make a thick carpet, and build a fire in the sheet-iron stove. All winter long they move every two or three weeks, finding a new camp whenever a new hunting-ground is necessary.
Otelne Walks on Snow Shoes.