We returned to the grass park. After some difficulty we
found a clear footprint. It was a little larger than that made by a
good-sized coon.
"So, you see," I admonished didactically, "that lunge probably was not
quite so large as you thought."
"It may have been a Chinese bear," said Dick dreamily--"a Chinese lady
bear of high degree."
I gave him up.
VII.
ON OPEN-WATER CANOE TRAVELLING.
"It is there that I am going, with an extra hand to bail her--
Just one single long-shore loafer that I know. He can take his chance
of drowning while I sail and sail and sail her, For the Red Gods call
me out, and I must go."
The following morning the wind had died, but had been succeeded by a
heavy pall of fog. After we had felt our way beyond the mouth of the
river we were forced to paddle north-west by north, in blind reliance
on our compass. Sounds there were none. Involuntarily we lowered our
voices. The inadvertent click of the paddle against the gunwale seemed
to desecrate a foreordained stillness.
Occasionally to the right hand or the left we made out faint
shadow-pictures of wooded islands that endured but a moment and then
deliberately faded into whiteness. They formed on the view exactly as
an image develops on a photographic plate. Sometimes a faint
_lisp-lisp-lisp_ of tiny waves against a shore nearer than it
seemed cautioned us anew not to break the silence. Otherwise we were
alone, intruders, suffered in the presence of a brooding nature only as
long as we refrained from disturbances.
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