ts and meadows, mountains and
valleys, lakes and moors, left over; and these He threw together to
make the southern part of Sweden. I like that kind of a promiscuous
country. The spice of life grows there.

When we had escaped from the railroad at Enfield on the Penobscot, we
slept a short night in a room over a country store, and took wagon the
next morning for a twenty-five mile drive. At the somnolent little
village of Burlington we found our guides waiting for us. They were
sitting on the green at the cross-roads, with their paddles and axes
and bundles beside them. I knew at a glance that they were ready and
all right: Sam Dam, an old experienced, seasoned guide, and Harry, a
good-looking young woodsman who had worked in lumber camps and on "the
drive," but had never been "guiding" before. He was none the worse for
that, for he belonged to the type of Maine man who has the faculty of
learning things by doing them.

As we rattled along the road the farms grew poorer and sparser, until
at last we came into the woods, crossed the rocky Passadumkeag River,
and so over a succession of horseback hills to the landing-place on
Nicatous Stream, where the canoes were hidden in the bushes. Now load
up with the bundles and boxes, the tent, the blanket-roll, the
clothes-bag, the provisions--all the stuff that is known as "duffel"
in New York, and "_butins_" in French Canada, and "_wangan_" in
Maine--stow it all away judiciously so that the two light craft will be
well balanced; and then push off, bow paddles, and let us taste the joy
of a new stream! New to the boy and me, you understand; but to the
guides it was old and familiar, a link in a much-travelled route. The
amber water rippled merrily over the rocky bars where the river was
low, and in the still reaches it spread out broad and smooth, covered
with white lilies and fringed with tall grasses. All along the pleasant
way Sam entertained us with memories of the stream.

"Ye see that grassy p'int, jest ahead of us? Three weeks ago I was
comin' down for the mail, and there was three deer a-stannin' on that
p'int, a buck and a doe and a fawn. And----"

"Up in them alders there's a little spring brook comes in. Good fishin'
there in high water. But now? Well----"

"Jest beyond that bunch o' rocks last fall there was three fellers
comin' down in a canoe, and a big bear come out and started 'cross
river. The gun was in the case in the bottom of the canoe, and one o'
the f