us also a few fresh eggs, saying, "'Twill be a long time before you
has eggs again."

At half-past ten o'clock our canoes were afloat, farewell was said,
and we were beyond the last fringe of civilization.

The morning was depressing and the sky was overcast with low-hanging,
heavy clouds, but almost with our start, as if to give us courage for
our work and fire our blood, the leaden curtain was drawn aside and
the deep blue dome of heaven rose above us. The sun shone warm and
bright, and the smell of the fresh damp forest, the incense of the
wilderness gods, was carried to us by a puff of wind from the south
which enabled Duncan to hoist his sails. The rest of us bent to our
paddles, and all were eager to plunge into the unknown and solve the
mystery of what lay beyond the horizon.

Our nineteen-foot canoe was manned by Pete in the bow, Stanton in the
center and Easton in the stern, while I had the bow and Richards the
stern of the eighteen-foot canoe. We paddled along the north shore of
the lake, close to land. Stanton, with an eye for fresh meat, espied
a porcupine near the water's edge and stopped to kill it, thus gaining
the honor of having bagged the first game of the trip. At twelve
o'clock we halted for luncheon, in almost the same spot where Hubbard
and I had lunched when going up Grand Lake two years before. While
Pete cooked bacon and eggs and made tea, Stanton and Richards dressed
the porcupine for supper.

After luncheon we cut diagonally across the lake to the southern
shore, passed Cape Corbeau River and landed near the base of Cape
Corbeau bluff, that the elevation might be taken and geological