and already smirched by her dirty lips, together with a stock of tea, crackers and bacon for which her expanded corporosity evinced no imminent need. At last rid of our importunate acquaintances, we turned in for a sleep, which we resolved should be broken at the first moment, dark or light, when we might cross the lake. Before daylight the Betsy's resonant call awoke us, and in the earliest gray we paddled out upon a heavy but not foaming sea, and after two and a half hours of monotonous splashing in the trough of the waves landed for breakfast on the eastern shore, whence we crossed a lovely bay and passed out once more upon the river.
A mile on our way we came to the prettiest of the many Indian burying-grounds which we saw now and then. Formerly, the Indians deposited their dead upon rude scaffolds well up in the air. Now they seek high ground and place the bodies of the departed in shallow graves, over which they build little wooden houses a foot or two high with gabled roofs, and mark each with a white flag raised upon a pole a few feet above the sleeper's head. In this neighborhood we inquired of a stalwart brave concerning our proximity to a portage by means of which a short walk over to a small lake near the head of Ball Club Lake and a pull of six miles down the latter would bring us out again into the river, and save a tedious voyage of twenty-five to thirty miles through a broad savanna. The Indian in his old birch canoe joined our fleet, and led us to the beginning of the portage near the foot of Little Winnipeg Lake. We had carried two canoes and all the baggage over to the water on the other side of a sandy ridge, leaving only the Kleiner Fritz to be brought, when our guide and packer, with a preliminary grunt, said "Money?" inquiring how much we intended to pay him. He had worked hard for four hours, for which we tried to tell him that we should pay him one dollar when he should bring over the remaining canoe; but we could not make him understand what a dollar was. We then laid down, one after another, four silver quarter-dollars and two bars of tobacco; whereupon he gave a satisfied grunt and an affirmative nod, disappeared in the forest, and in less than an hour returned with the Fritz upon his steaming shoulders, having covered more than three miles in the round trip.
As we pulled out upon Ball Club Lake a gentle stern wind bade us hoist our canvas for an easy and pleasant sail of six or seven miles down to the open river. We glided out gayly before a gentle breeze, and sailed restfully over the little rippling waves, our speed increasing, though we hardly noted the signs of a gale driving after us over the hills behind. The Hattie was leading well over to the port shore, the Fritz bearing straight down the middle, with the Betsy on the starboard quarter, when the storm struck us with a vigor that increased with each gust. The black clouds swished over our heads, seemingly almost within reach of our paddles. The sails tugged at the sheets with tiresome strength. The canoes now plunged into a wave at the bows and were now swept by others astern, as they rushed forward like mettlesome colts or hung poised upon or within a rolling swell, until, with the increasing gale, the roaring waves dashed entirely over decks and men. The Hattie bore away to leeward and rode the gale finely, but at last prudence bade the furling of her sail. Expecting no such blow the Fritz had not taken the precaution to arrange her rubber apron for keeping out the waves from her manhole, and now, between holding the sheet, steering and watching the gusty wind, neither hand nor eye could be spared for defensive preparations; so her skipper struck sail and paddled for the westward shore, with the Betsy lunging and plunging close behind. We on the windward side sought the smoother water within the reeds, and drove along rapidly under bare poles, out of sight of the Hattie, separated at nightfall by miles of raging sea. We rode before the wind to the foot of the lake, where we were confronted by the alternative of a toilsome and unsafe paddle around the coast against the storm's full force, or camping in mutual anxiety as to the fate of the unseen party—a by no means pleasant sedative for a night's rest upon wild and uninhabited shores. We decided upon the pull, and labored on, now upon the easy swells within the reeds, and then tossing upon the crests in open places, until at last a whirling column of smoke a mile ahead gave us assurance of the Hattie's safety. The reunited fleet paddled down into the Mississippi, enlivening the darkness until we could find camping-ground beyond the marshes by a comparison of storm-experiences and congratulations that we had escaped the bottom of the lake.
Late in the afternoon of the next day, after a monotonous pull through the interminable windings of Eagle Nest Savanna, we swept around a curve of high tillable land upon the uppermost farm cultivated by whites, eighteen miles above Pekagema Falls, and one hundred and seventy miles by river beyond the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thomas Smith and his partner, farming, herding and lumbering at the mouth of Vermilion River, were the first white men we had seen since July 6, seventeen days, and with them we enjoyed a chat in straight English. Nine miles below we camped at River Camp, the second farm downward, where we were kindly supplied with vegetables and with fresh milk, which seemed to us then like the nectar of the gods. Thursday, 24th, we reached Pekagema Falls, a wild pitch of some twenty feet, with rapids above and below, down which the strong volume of the river plunges with terrible force in picturesque beauty. A carry around the falls and three miles of paddling brought us to Grand Rapids, and we rushed like the wind into the whirl and boil of its upper ledge, down the steep and crooked incline for two hundred yards, out of which we shot up to the bank under a little group of houses where Warren Potter and Knox & Wakefield conduct the uppermost post-office and stores upon the river. We speedily closed our partly-completed letters and posted them for a pack-mail upon an Indian's back sixty-five miles to Aitkin, while we should follow the tortuous river thither for one hundred and fifty miles. We had hoped for a rest and lift hence to Aitkin upon the good steamboat City of Aitkin, which makes a few lonely trips each spring and fall, but the low water had prevented her return from her last voyage, made ten days before our arrival. Our stores replenished, after two hours of rest we started again in a driving rain, and under the hearty bon voyage of a dozen frontiersmen and Indians shot the two lively lower ledges of Grand Rapids, and came out on smooth water, whose sluggish flow, broken by a very few rifts, bore us thence one hundred and fifty miles to the next white settlement at Aitkin. The entire distance lies through low bottom-lands heavily timbered, and our course was drearily monotonous. We left Grand Rapids at mid-afternoon of Thursday, July 24, and camped on Friday night four miles below Swan River. Late on Saturday we passed Sandy Lake River—where formerly were a large Indian population and an important trading-post, founded and for many years conducted by Mr. Aitkin, who was prominently identified with the early history of that region, and is now commemorated in the town and county bearing his name, but where now remain only one or two deserted cabins and a few Indian graves, over which white flags were flapping in the sultry breeze—and camped two miles below. Monday's afternoon brought us to Aitkin, so that we had covered one hundred and fifty miles of sluggish channel, at low summer tide, in three working days. We had been four weeks beyond possibility of home-tidings, and we swooped down upon the disciple of Morse in that far-away village with work that kept him clicking for an hour. We were handsomely taken in by Warren Potter, a pioneer and an active and intelligent factor in the business of that region, in whose tasteful home we for the first time in a month sat down and ate in Christian fashion under a civilized roof. Having lost a week in the farther wilderness, we decided to take the rail to Minneapolis, that we might enjoy the beautiful river thence to Lake Pepin, yet reach our homes within the appointed time. Half a day was enjoyed at Brainerd, the junction of the Northern Pacific main line with the St. Paul branch, and the most important town between Lake Superior and the Missouri. It is beautifully built and picturesquely scattered among the pines upon the Mississippi's eastern bank, not far above Crow Wing River. Thence we were carried over the splendid railway, passing the now abandoned Fort Ripley, winding along or near to the river and across the wheat-fields, through the busy and beautiful city of mills, below St. Anthony's roar and down the dancing rapids to a pleasant island-camp between the green-and-gray bluffs that bind Minneapolis to Minnehaha—the first really fine scenery this side of Itasca's solitude. A delightful paddle under a bright morning sun and over swift, clear water carried us to the little brook whose laughter, three-quarters of a mile up a deep ravine, has been sent by Longfellow rippling outward to all the world. We rounded the great white-faced sand-rock that marks the outlet, paddled as far as we might up the quiet stream, beached the canoes under the shade of the willows, walked a little way up the brook, past a deserted mill, under cool shadows of rock and wood, and enjoyed for half an hour the simple, seductive charms of the "Laughing Water." Then we tramped back to our boats, floated down under the old walls of Fort Snelling and between the chalk-white
