silvery birches on a knoll; a magnificent white pine towering over the
beech and maple forest; the unexpected aisle of a long, straight
stretch of the little river.

Deuce approved thoroughly. He stretched himself and yawned and shook
off the water, and glanced at me open-mouthed with doggy good-nature,
and set himself to acquiring a conscientious olfactory knowledge of
both banks of the river. I do not doubt he knew a great deal more
about it than we did. Porcupines aroused his special enthusiasm.
Incidentally, two days later he returned to camp after an expedition of
his own, bristling as to the face with that animal's barbed weapons.
Thenceforward his interest waned.

We ascended the charming little river two or three miles. At a sharp
bend to the east a huge sheet of rock sloped from a round grass knoll
sparsely planted with birches directly down into a pool. Two or three
tree trunks jammed directly opposite had formed a sort of half dam
under which the water lay dark. A tiny grass meadow forty feet in
diameter narrowed the stream to half its width.

We landed. Dick seated himself on the shelving rock. I put my fish-rod
together. Deuce disappeared.

Deuce always disappeared whenever we landed. With nose down, hind
quarters well tucked under him, ears flying, he quartered the forest at
high speed, investigating every nook and cranny of it for the radius of
a quarter of a mile. When he has quite satisfied himself that we were
safe for the moment, he would return to the fire, where he would lie,
six inches of pink tongue vibrating with breathlessness, beautiful in
the consciousness of virtue. Dick generally sat on a rock and thought.