less astonished than they, for we certainly expected no such game to
be hiding there, and when they leaped up so suddenly and plunged away,
crashing and snorting through the brush, it startled us somewhat; but
our boats and guns were on the other side of the island, and we could
only look on as they swam boldly to the shore without the power to
harm them.

At the east end of the lake a large stream, deep, sluggish, and
tortuous enters, which we voted came from a lake or pond, back at the
base of the hills, seen some three or four miles distant in that
direction, and while the other boats passed in another direction,
Spalding and myself started upstream to explore it. As we advanced,
the alders and willows encroached more and more upon the channel,
until it became too narrow for rowing. Our boatman took his paddle,
and seated in the stern of our little craft, propelled it up stream
for an hour or more. The alders gradually contracted, the channel
becoming narrower until we were passing under a low archway of
branches, covered with dense foliage, through which the sunlight could
not penetrate. The arch grew lower and lower, and the channel
narrower, until we at last absolutely stuck fast among the branches of
the alders which, here grew almost horizontally over the stream. We
could not turn round, and to go further was absolutely impossible;
there was but one mode of extrication, and that was to back straight
out the way we had entered. Our boatman changed his position to the
bow of the boat, and after much labor and exertion, we started down
stream. After two hours of hard work, pushing with the oars and
pulling by the branches, we emerged into daylight, came out into the
open stream, not a little fatigued by our efforts to find the
imaginary pond at the base of the mountains.