Yet there
were the rapids, where the skill and judgment of the men were our
safeguards. One little miscalculation and it would take but an
instant to whelm us in disaster. Still we had come so far on the
way with success, surely it would be given to us to reach the goal
in safety. But here inevitably thought flew to one who had been
infinitely worthy but who had been denied.
Five days to Ungava! and because I so much wished it to be true I
was afraid, for the hard things of life will sometimes make cowards
of its pilgrims.
The Barren Grounds Water was very fair in the morning sunshine. It
was as if, while exploring some great ruin, we had chanced into a
secret, hidden chamber, the most splendid of them all, and when
after lunch the promised fair wind sprang up, and the canoes with
well-filled sails were speeding northward, the lake and its
guardian hills became bluer and more beautiful than ever.
Nowhere did we find the lake more than two miles wide. Long points
reaching out from either shore cut off the view and seemed to
change the course; but in reality they did not, for it was always
northward. To right and left there were the hills, now barren
altogether, or again with a narrow belt of "greenwoods"--spruce,
balsam, tamarack--along the shore.
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