e made into packages
with the blankets and the tent canvas for wrappings; and each package
was securely lashed beneath the brace-bars of the birch-bark, so that in
case of a capsize there would still be some chance for salvage. Prime's
final precaution was worthy of a real woodsman. Drying the empty
whiskey-bottle carefully with a wisp of grass, he filled it with
matches, corked it tightly, and skewered it in an inside pocket of his
coat.

"You are learning," Lucetta observed; and then: "Did you get that out of
a story?"

"No, indeed; I dug it up whole out of my literary imagination. If I
should tumble overboard you want to be sure to save the pieces, if you
ever hope to see a fire again. Are we all ready?"

Five minutes later they had taken their lives in their hands and were
shooting the rapids. With the laden canoe the paddling was an entirely
different proposition. Mile after mile the quick water held, with only
the shortest of reaches between Scylla and Charybdis for the
breath-catching. At first the keen strain of it keyed nerve and muscle
to the snapping-point; but after a time the fine wine of peril had its
due and exhilarating effect, and they shouted and laughed, calling to
each other above the turmoil of the waters, gasping joyously when the
spray from the white-fanged boulders slapped them in the face, and
having the luck of the innocent or the drunken, since disaster held
aloof and they escaped with nothing more serious than the spray
wettings.

Though light-heartedness thus sat in the saddle--or knelt on the
paddling-mat--prudence was not wholly banished. At noon, when they
pulled out at the foot of a quiet reach to make a pot of tea, they found
that they were at the head of a rapid too swift and tortuous to offer
anything but certain catastrophe. While the tea water was heating Prime
went ahead to reconnoitre.

"Too many chances," he reported on his return. "And, besides, the carry
is only a few hundred yards. It means more hard work, but we can't
afford to run the risk."

"Oh, dear me!" sighed the young woman in mock despair; "have we got to
unload that canoe piece by piece, and then carry and load it all over
again?"

"We shall doubtless have to do it so many times that we shall count that
day lost when we are denied the opportunity," Prime laughed. "But,
Heaven helping us, we shall make no more three-mile portages, as we did
yesterday."

The task did not seem quite so formidable after they