, before sundown, at the Lake of the Bear, where
we were to spend a couple of days. The lake was full of floating logs,
and the water, raised by the heavy rains and the operations of
the lumbermen, was several feet above its usual level. Nature's
landing-places were all blotted out, and we had to explore halfway
around the shore before we could get out comfortably. We raised the
tents on a small shoulder of a hill, a few rods above the water; and
a glorious camp-fire of birch logs soon made us forget our misery as
though it had not been.

The name of the Lake of the Beautiful Trout made us desire to visit
it. The portage was said to be only fifty acres long (the arpent is the
popular measure of distance here), but it passed over a ridge of newly
burned land, and was so entangled with ruined woods and desolate of
birds and flowers that it seemed to us at least five miles. The lake
was charming--a sheet of singularly clear water, of a pale green tinge,
surrounded by wooded hills. In the translucent depths trout and pike
live together, but whether in peace or not I cannot tell. Both of
them grow to an enormous size, but the pike are larger and have more
capacious jaws. One of them broke my tackle and went off with a silver
spoon in his mouth, as if he had been born to it. Of course the guides
vowed that they saw him as he passed under the canoe, and declared that
he must weigh thirty or forty pounds. The spectacles of regret always
magnify.

The trout were coy. We took only five of them, perfect specimens of
the true Salvelinus fontinalis, with square tails, and carmine spots
on their dark, mottled sides; the largest weighed three pounds and
three-quarters, and the others were almost as heavy.

On our way back to the camp we found the portage beset by innumerable
and bloodthirsty foes. There are four grades of insect malignity in
the woods. The mildest is represented by the winged idiot that John
Burroughs' little boy called a "blunderhead." He dances stupidly before
your face, as if lost in admiration, and finishes his pointless tale by
getting in your eye, or down your throat. The next grade is represented
by the midges. "Bite 'em no see 'em," is the Indian name for these
invisible atoms of animated pepper which settle upon you in the twilight
and make your skin burn like fire. But their hour is brief, and when
they depart they leave not a bump behind. One step lower in the scale
we find the mosquito, or rather he fin