he rapids. After
landing, they found traces of an old camp fire. It was near noon now,
so Rolf prepared the meal while Quonab took a light pack and went on to
learn the trail. It was not well marked; had not been used for a year
or two, evidently, but there are certain rules that guide one. The trail
keeps near the water, unless there is some great natural barrier, and it
is usually the easiest way in sight. Quonab kept one eye on the river,
for navigable water was the main thing, and in about one hundred yards
he was again on the stream's edge, at a good landing above the rapid.

After the meal was finished and the Indian had smoked, they set to work.
In a few loads each, the stuff was portaged across, and the canoe was
carried over and moored to the bank.

The cargo replaced, they went on again, but in half an hour after
passing more shoal water, saw another rapid, not steep, but too shallow
to float the canoe, even with both men wading. Here Quonab made what
the Frenchmen call a demi-charge. He carried half the stuff to the bank;
then, wading, one at each end, they hauled the canoe up the portage and
reloaded her above. Another strip of good going was succeeded by a long
stretch of very swift water that was two or three feet deep and between
shores that were densely grown with alders. The Indian landed, cut two
light, strong poles, and now, one at the bow, the other at the stern,
they worked their way foot by foot up the fierce current until safely on
the upper level.

Yet one more style of canoe propulsion was forced on them. They came to
a long stretch of smooth, deep, very swift water, almost a rapid-one of
the kind that is a joy when you are coming down stream. It differed from
the last in having shores that were not alder-hidden, but open gravel
banks. Now did Quonab take a long, strong line from his war sack. One
end he fastened, not to the bow, but to the forward part of the canoe,
the other to a buckskin band which he put across his breast. Then, with
Rolf in the stern to steer and the Indian hauling on the bank, the canoe
was safely "tracked" up the "strong waters."

Thus they fought their way up the hard river, day after day, making
sometimes only five miles after twelve hours' toilsome travel. Rapids,
shoals, portages, strong waters, abounded, and before they had covered
the fifty miles to the forks of Jesup's River, they knew right well why
the region was so little entered.

It made a hardened canoe