With a light hand, a cool head, and a quick eye, you
can make them go where a duck can. What has science, and taste, and
handicraft ever made to improve on this simple contrivance of the
savage? When I was for two years in John Jacob Astor Fur Company's
employment, I knew the play of Jessie's tribe.
"Can you catch," said I, "Miss?"
"Can you?"
"Never fear."
And we exchanged paddles, as she sat in one end of the canoe and I in
the other, by throwing them diagonally at each other as if we were
passing a shuttle-cock. She almost screamed with delight, and in her
enthusiasm addressed me in her native Indian language.
"Gaelic," said I, "give me Gaelic, dear, for I am very simple and very
innocent."
"Oh, very," she said, and as she dropped her paddle into the water,
managed to give me the benefit of a spoonful in the eyes.
After we had tried several evolutions with the canoe, and had
proceeded homeward a short distance, we opened a miniature bay into
which we leisurely paddled, until we arrived at its head, where a
small waterfall of about forty feet in height poured its tributary
stream into the lake. On the right-hand side, which was nearest to the
house, was a narrow strip of verdant intervale, dotted here and there
with vast shady beeches and elms. I never saw a more lovely spot.
Hills rose above each other beyond the waterfall, like buttresses to
support the conical one that, though not in itself a mountain (for
there is not, strictly speaking, one in this province), yet loomed as
large in the light mist that enveloped its lofty peak.
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