night the Abwees lay on
their backs under the blankets, while the fog settled over the meadow
and blotted out the stars.

On the following day the stuff was all gotten through, and by this time
the lawyer had become a voyager, willing to carry anything he could
stagger under. It is strange how one can accustom himself to "pack." He
may never use the tump-line, since it goes across the head, and will
unseat his intellect if he does, but with shoulder-straps and a
tump-line a man who thinks he is not strong will simply amaze himself
inside of a week by what he can do. As for our little canoes, we could
trot with them. Each Abwee carried his own belongings and his boat,
which entitled him to the distinction of "a dead game sport," whatever
that may mean, while the Indians portaged their larger canoes and our
mass of supplies, making many trips backward and forward in the process.

At the river everything was parcelled out and arranged. The birch-barks
were repitched, and every man found out what he was expected to portage
and do about camp. After breaking and making camp three times, the
outfit could pack up, load the canoes, and move inside of fifteen
minutes. At the first camp the lawyer essayed his canoe, and was
cautioned that the delicate thing might flirt with him. He stepped in
and sat gracefully down in about two feet of water, while the "delicate
thing" shook herself saucily at his side. After he had crawled dripping
ashore and wiped his eye-glasses, he engaged to sell the "delicate
thing" to an Indian for one dollar and a half on a promissory note. The
trade was suppressed, and he was urged to try again. A man who has held
down a cane-bottom chair conscientiously for fifteen years looks askance
at so fickle a thing as a canoe twenty-nine inches in the beam. They are
nearly as hard to sit on in the water as a cork; but once one is in the
bottom they are stable enough, though they do not submit to liberties or
palsied movements. The staid lawyer was filled with horror at the
prospect of another go at his polished beauty; but remembering his
resolve to be dead game, he abandoned his life to the chances, and got
in this time safely.

[Illustration: 43 IT IS STRANGE HOW ONE CAN ACCUSTOM HIMSELF TO 'PACK']

So the Abwees went down the river on a golden morning, their
double-blade paddles flashing the sun and sending the drip in a shower
on the glassy water. The smoke from the lawyer's pipe hung behind him in
the q