I was
greatly pleased to get it, and later I saw several of them. I
found also blue and white violets, one of the blue ones a variety I
had never seen before.
Towards evening the hills had melted away. We had come up to the
top of those which, twenty miles back, had looked high, and now we
could look back and down to those which there had also seemed high.
A new thrill came with this being up among the hilltops, and I
began to feel like an explorer.
The tents were pitched near a pool of smooth water, deep and
darkened by shadows of the evergreens on either shore. On the
farther side of the river were low, wooded hills, and opposite our
camp a brook came tumbling through the wall of evergreens into the
river. Just above the brook a high, dead stub, with a big blaze on
it, showed where we were to leave the Wapustan to cross to Seal
Lake.
It was not until noon on Saturday, July 15th, that we left our
pretty camp, for it rained steadily in the meantime. Then we
started on our cross-country trip, working up to the north, from
which direction the brook flows. A two-mile carry brought us out
on Saturday evening to a lake at its head. After dinner on Sunday
we again went forward with a whole mile of paddling to cheer us on
our way. From the head of the lake another mile of good portaging
brought us at last to waters flowing to Seal Lake, and we were
again in the canoes to taste for a little the pleasures of going
with the tide. For long we had been going against it - and such a
tide!
Our way now led through three exquisitely beautiful little lakes,
to where their waters drop down over rocky ledges in a noisy
stream, on their way to the lake we were trying to reach. Here on
the left of the outlet we made our camp. On either side rose a
high hill only recently burned over - last summer Gilbert said.
George, Gilbert and I climbed the hill back of our camp in hopes of
catching a first glimpse of Seal Lake, but we could not see it.
What we did see was very fine, and I stood watching it for some
time after the others had gone back to camp. Eastward the great
hills rose rugged and irregular, and farther away in the blue
distance the range lying beyond Seal Lake, all touched to beauty by
the evening light.
Slipping down the hill again, I reached camp just as the supper was
ready, and after our meal George, Job, Gilbert, and I crossed to
climb the hill on the other side, which rose 540 feet above our
camp.
