steamers. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to their trip up
the Shadow River the summer before than this excursion. On that other
trip they had been the only living beings on the horizon, and nature was
supreme everywhere, but here they were fairly engulfed by the works of
man. The tiny craft nosed her way among giant steamers, six-hundred-foot
freighters, coal barges, lighters, fire boats, tugs, scows, and all the
other kinds of vessels that crowd the river-harbor of a great lake port.
Viewed from below, the steel structure of the viaduct over the river
stretched out like the monstrous skeleton of some prehistoric beast.
Whistles shrieked deafeningly in their ears and trains pounded jarringly
over railroad bridges. A jack-knife bridge began to descend over their
very heads. Over where the new bridge was being constructed men stood on
slender girders high in the air, catching red-hot rivets that were being
tossed them, while an automatic riveting hammer filled the air with its
nerve-destroying clamor. Everywhere was bustle and confusion, and noise,
noise, noise.

And in the midst of this tumult the tiny launch, filled with laughing
girls, threaded its way up the black river, flying the Winnebago banner,
while behind it trailed a birchbark canoe, with Sahwah squatting calmly
in the stern, leaning her back against her paddle. Many times they had
to bury their noses in their handkerchiefs to shut out the smells that
assailed them on every side. On they chugged, past the lumber yards with
their acres of stacked boards, some of which had come from the very
neighborhood of Camp Winnebago; past the chemical works, pouring out its
darkly polluted streams into the river. "Ugh," said Gladys with a
shiver, "to think that that stuff flows on into the lake and we drink
lake water!"

"It seems like a different world altogether," said Migwan, looking out