, and a late hour it was, for the June days
in the north woods are long. We had at no time lost sight of the river,
and we began to realize the positive necessity of locating our guides
and canoes. We had given up trying to understand the delay. We decided
to follow back up the river until we found them, or until we reached
some other branch which they might have chosen. It was just as we were
about to begin this discouraging undertaking that far up the bend we
heard a call, then another. We answered, both together, and in the reply
we recognized the tones of Charles the Strong.

Presently they came in sight--each dragging a canoe over the last riffle
just above the long hole. A moment later we had hurried back to meet two
of the weariest, wettest, most bedraggled mortals that ever poled and
dragged and carried canoe. All day they had been pulling and lifting;
loading, unloading and carrying those canoes and bags and baskets over
the Shelburne riffles, where not even the lightest craft could float.
How long had been the distance they did not know, but the miles had
been sore, tedious miles, and they had eaten nothing more than a
biscuit, expecting at every bend to find us waiting.

It was proper that we should make camp now at the first inviting place.
We offered to stop right there, where our fire was already going, but it
was decided that the ground was a poor selection, being rather low. We
piled into the canoes and shot down the long hole, while the light of
evening was fading from the sky. Several hundred yards below, the water
widened and the bank sloped higher. It seemed an attractive spot and we
already knew the fishing in these waters. But as a final test Eddie made
a cast as we rounded, tossing his flies into an inviting swirl just
below a huge bowlder. For some reason we had put on three flies, and
when he finally got his mess of fish into the net, there were three
trout--all good ones--one on each fly.

We decided to camp there, for good luck, and to stay until we were fully
repaired for travel. No camp was ever more warmly welcomed, or ever will
be more fondly remembered by us all.

Chapter Fifteen

_To-night, to-night, the frost is white,_
_Under the silver moon;_
_And lo, I lie, as the hours go by,_
_Freezing to death in June._

Chapter Fifteen

The reader will have gathered by this time that I had set out with only
a hazy idea of what camping in Nova Scotia would be l