By
the camp fire, after our meal, the men sat telling each other
stories till Job and Joe broke the little circle and went to their
tent. Then floating out on the solemn, evening silence came the
sound of hymns sung in Indian to old, familiar tunes, and last the
"Paddling Song." With what an intense love the one who was "gone
away" had loved it all. I could not help wondering if sometimes he
wished to be with me. It seemed as if he must.
On Sunday morning it rained, but cleared before noon, and at 11.30
A.M. we were on the river. That afternoon and the day following we
passed the most picturesque part of the river. There were Maid
Marion Falls, where the river drops fifty feet into a narrow gorge
cut out of the gneiss and schists of the Laurentian rock over which
it flows; Gertrude Falls, a direct drop of sixty feet, which for
dignity and beauty is unsurpassed by any feature of the Nascaupee;
and Isabella Falls, a system of falls and rapids and chutes
extending for more than a mile, where the water poured over ledges,
flowed in a foaming, roaring torrent round little rocky islands, or
rushed madly down a chute. About half-way up there was an abrupt,
right angle bend in the river, and, standing at the bend looking
northward, you could see through the screen of spruce on the
islands, high above you and half a mile away, the beginning of the
river's wild mile race, as it took the first flying leap out over a
wall of rocks.
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