Here let me advise those engaged in similar expeditions to be careful about such trifles, for a party may be brought to a standstill, and lives endangered, by the loss of articles which may appear, at the moment, of little value.
Now and then we came to rapids which it was deemed tolerably safe to shoot. We had performed this feat twice when we came to another. We had got through the greater part when, as we were dashing on amid the foam, the stern swiftly turning round, we grazed a rock.
“A narrow shave!” I exclaimed, thinking we were safe, but Peter’s cry of—
“Oh, sir! oh, sir! the water is a running in, and we shall all be drowned!”
“Stick your thumb into it,” cried Trevor, from the other canoe, which was just ahead, and had escaped all danger. This the lad did literally, but the water spouted up all round his arm.
“Never mind,” exclaimed “Longshot,” the chief of my canoe, “we shall go on till the next portage.”
But the water kept rising and rising till we had three inches of it inside the canoe. This was more than I bargained for, and as the cargo would be injured even if we did not sink, I insisted on landing. The chief trouble was unlading the canoe; for a piece of bark sewed on with wattap, and covered over with gum melted with a burning stick, soon repaired the damage.
Thus we made good three hundred and eighty-one miles, counting the sinuosities of the course, and found ourselves encamped on the north-west corner of the beautiful Lake of the Woods. I say beautiful, for no part of North America presents more lovely and picturesque lake scenery—here bare precipitous rocks, there abrupt timbered hills of every form, and gentle wooded slopes and open grassy areas, while islands of every variety of form and size dot the blue expanse.
There was the usual fog resting on the surface of the lake as I turned out in the morning before the rest of the party, whom I was about to rouse up, when my ear caught the sound of paddles approaching the camp. That they were Indians there could be no doubt, and I thought that they were probably on a journey and would pass by without observing us. Swiftfoot had not given the Wood Indians of this district the best of characters, yet, as they had always shown a friendly disposition towards the English, we heard, we had no cause to apprehend danger from them. Still, I knew that it was necessary when travelling in those regions to be on our guard, and I therefore stood still, expecting to hear the sound of the paddles gradually decrease as they passed by. Suddenly, however, a light puff of wind lifted the veil of mist, and exposed to view nearly a dozen large canoes filled with painted and feather-bedecked Indians, evidently a war-party, and coming directly for our camp.
“Indians! Quick, to your feet!” I shouted out, having no fancy to be murdered through too much ceremony, or by putting over-confidence in a band of savages.