At every turn we
came upon luxuriant hay meadows, with generally heavy woods
opposite them, the river showing the same easy and accessible
shore, whilst now and then giant hoof-prints, a broken marge,
and miry grass showed where a moose had recently sprawled up
the bank. Nothing, indeed, could surpass the rich colour-tone
of this delightful stream--an exquisite opaqueness even under
the clouds; but, interfused with sunshine, like that rare and
translucent brown spread by the pencil of a master.
As we were paddling along, the willows on shore suddenly parted,
and an Indian runner appeared on the bank, who hailed us and,
handing over a sack of mail with letters and papers for us all,
sped off as suddenly as he came.
It was now the last day of August, raw and drizzly, and having
paddled about ten miles through a like country, we came in sight
of the Pelican Mountains to the west, and, later on, to a fork
of the river called Muskeg Creek, above which our stream narrowed
to about eighteen feet, but still deep and fringed with the same
extensive hay meadows, and covered here and there with pond
lilies, a few yellow ones still in bloom. By and by we reached
Muskeg Portage, nearly a mile in length. The path lay at first
through dry muskegs covered with blueberries, Labrador tea, and
a dwarfed growth of birch, spruce, tamarac, and jackpine, but
presently entered and ended in a fine upland wood, full of
pea-vines, vetches and wild rose.
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