adequately protecting the beaver. I shall leave the above,
however, as applying to other and less humane districts, wherever
located.

Chapter Twenty-nine

_Once more, to-night, the woods are white_
_That lee so dim and far,_
_Where the wild trout hide and the moose abide_
_Under the northern star._

Chapter Twenty-nine

Perhaps the brightest spot of that sad period when we were making ready
to leave the woods, with all their comfort, their peace and their
religion, and go back to the harrying haunts of men, to mingle with the
fever and fret of daily strife, is the memory of a trip to Jeremy's Bay.
I don't know in the least where Jeremy's Bay is, but it is somewhere
within an hour's paddle of Jim Charles's Point, and it is that hour and
the return that sticks with me now.

It was among the last days of June--the most wonderful season in the
north woods. The sun seems never ready to set there, then, and all the
world is made of blues and greens and the long, lingering tones of
evening.

We had early tea in preparation for the sunset fishing. It was best, Del
said, in Jeremy's Bay about that time. So it was perhaps an hour earlier
when we started, the canoes light.

In any one life there are not many evenings such as that. It is just as
well, for I should account it a permanent sadness if they became
monotonous. Perhaps they never would. Our course lay between shores--an
island on the one hand, the mainland on the other. When we rounded the
point, we were met by a breeze blown straight from the sunset--a breath
that was wild and fresh and sweet, and billowed the water till it caught
every hue and shimmering iridescence that the sky and shores and setting
sun could give.

We were eager and rested, for we had done little that day, and the empty
canoes slipped like magic into a magical sea of amethyst and emerald
gold, the fresh breeze filling us with life and ecstasy until we seemed
almost to fly. The eyes could not look easily into the glory ahead,
though it was less easy to look away from the enchantment which lay
under the sunset. The Kingdom of Ponemah was there, and it was as if we
were following Hiawatha to that fair and eternal hunting-ground.

Yet when one did turn, the transformation was almost worth while. The
colors were all changed. They were more peaceful, more like reality,
less like a harbor of dreams and visions too fair for the eyes of man to
look upon. A single glance