in heaps of glittering bubbles, as the paddles were lifted for a new
stroke.

Vast masses of dense foliage in the tender green of early spring crowned
the high banks of the lake on every side. The eye found no break
anywhere. Only the pink or delicate red of a wild flower just bursting
into bloom varied the solid expanse of emerald walls; and save for the
canoe and a bird of prey, darting in a streak of silver for a fish, the
surface of the water was lone and silent.

The three who used the paddles were individual and unlike, none of them
bearing any resemblance to the other two. The man sat in the stern. He
was of middle years, built very powerfully and with muscles and sinews
developed to an amazing degree. His face, in childhood quite fair, had
been burned almost as brown as that of an Indian by long exposure. He
was clothed wholly in tanned deerskin adorned with many little colored
beads. A hatchet and knife were in the broad belt at his waist, and a
long rifle lay at his feet.

His face was fine and open and he would have been noticed anywhere. But
the eyes of the curious would surely have rested first upon the two
youths with him.

One was back of the canoe's center on the right side and the other was
forward on the left. The weight of the three occupants was balanced so
nicely that their delicate craft floated on a perfectly even keel. The
lad near the prow was an Indian of a nobler type than is often seen in
these later days, when he has been deprived of the native surroundings
that fit him like the setting of a gem.