bridge, where the bands of sheep cross to the mountain summer
ranges of the forest reserves, and several times an easy haul, with
canoe loaded, around the end of a fallen tree or crude forest ranger's
bridge made of floating logs held together for the most part with baling
wire.

Now and again the river was bordered by nature-made fields, knee-deep
with flowers; there were purple lupin everywhere and vermilion Indian
paint-brush, and a score of other gay blossoms. Often for the pleasure
of tramping through this pretty outdoor garden, we would let the canoe
follow its own sweet will at the end of a rope, while we walked down the
bank, perhaps intimately investigating the households of beavers or
casting a royal coachman along the shadowed water close beside the edge.

The special delight of camping, as anyone knows who has tried it, is
that life all at once becomes so simple away from the high-pressure
world of telephones, time-tables, dinner engagements, and other
necessary evils. That is the essence of outing pleasure. The fishing,
the canoeing, the hunting, climbing, or what-not are really relegated to
obscurity in comparison with this one great boon. When our physical
system runs down, we take medicine; when our mental system gets out of
gear, we crave a dose of the open, which means of simplicity.

A canoe trip is simplicity personified. In the first place, you are
launched into the wide world of out-of-doors with your entire household,
from dining table to bed, concentrated in a couple of bundles that
repose amidships in the craft which is the beginning and the end of your
transportation possibilities. The rest is "up to you." If you would get
somewhere, it is necessary to paddle, always exercising due diligence to
keep the craft right side up and escape fatal collisions with vexatious
rocks and snags. In that department--locomotion--there is just enough
active responsibility to keep it thoroughly worth while, and more than
enough relaxation, as the current carries the canoe along with only now
and then a guiding dip of the paddle, to make it all a most pleasurable
loaf.

Every stopping place was a new experience, and, it should be said, each
seemed even more beautiful than its predecessor.

"There's a bully place. See--there under the big pine."

[Illustration: Along the Deschutes, the "River of Falls." "It roars and
rushes, in white-watered Cascades"

Copyright 1911 by Kiser Photo Co., Portland, Ore.]

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