“We’ll go for the canoe, and look her over,” said Gilbert rising, and the three filed out of the tent, and were presently down the river in our canoe to the scene of the wreck.

An hour later they returned with the injured canoe.  It was found that seven ribs were broken, and some of the planking smashed in, and the gunwales cracked, but fortunately the canvas was whole and unpunctured.   Murdock and Henry declared she could still carry a pretty good load, if stiffened in the bottom with timbers, and they proceeded to do with very good results—much better, indeed, than I hoped for.

While the boys were engaged, and were assembling a fresh outfit to be used on their trip to Grand Lake—for the attainment of baking powder still seemed necessary to their happiness—Judge Malone and Gilbert set out upon a scouting trip, equipped with rifles, compasses, and binoculars, and accompanied by the ever ready and expectant Poppy.

In mid-afternoon the scouts returned and reported that they had climbed to the summit of a hill, nearly if not quite as high as Porcupine Hill, which lay to the westward of our camp, and from this point of vantage were enabled to trace the river for perhaps five miles, until it was swallowed up among the hills which enclosed it.  So far as could be seen from this distance it continued very swift and far from promising.  A noticeable rise in the land ahead indicated, indeed, that we might expect much swifter water than any we had yet encountered, though beyond this rise there was an uncertain prospect of improved conditions.

Not far above our camp a river entered the Beaver from the south, and just above the mouth of this new river a brief widening occurred in the Beaver River valley.  A few miles above this widening another valley seemed to open into ours, but whether it contained a river the scouts could not determine from their lookout, as the valley was wooded and too deeply depressed among the hills for them to see its bottom.

On the new river, near our camp, a beautiful fall occurred some three miles from its mouth.  This river we named the “Charles Riley River,” in honor of a mutual friend of Bristol, Connecticut, who had taken much interest in our expedition.^[2]

“It’s the worst country for game I ever saw,” said Gilbert.  “Poppy never started a partridge, and if there’d been any about he’d found ‘em.  He’s wonderful for partridges.”

“No,” agreed the Judge, “we didn’t see a sign of any game of any kind, except a small owl, and I got him, but the rifle tore him up so we can’t cook him.”

“No sign of porcupines?” I asked, for I had hoped we might have porcupine for dinner.

“Not a sign.”

Flies were now exceedingly troublesome.  The eyes of both Henry and Murdock were inflamed and swollen.  All of us had badly swollen necks and wrists, and the tormentors had even crawled beneath my shirt bosom and raised many sore and itching welts upon my chest.  It is a rule in the woods that one shall not complain about one’s personal ills and inconveniences, for one must always bear in mind that the other fellow is suffering just as much and is just as badly off as oneself.  Therefore there was no complaint, though when we gathered in the tent for dinner, that we might eat in peace behind the protection if the cheesecloth front, many jocular remarks were passed as to the other fellows’ appearance, and what the flies had been doing to them, and no one escaped criticism in this respect.

A few flies found their way into the tent, but once inside they lost their inclination to attack, and devoted their sole and undivided energies to attempts to escape, rising to the tent peak and crawling about there in search of a possible opening.  This was our only tent now, and it had to serve the five of us for sleeping and for all purposes.

Robins singing in the trees aroused me at twilight-dawn the next morning.  There were apparently three of them, and I lay and revelled in the music.  It seemed not to come, however, with the joyful outburst of the morning song of our robins farther south, but I fancied possessed a cadence of sadness

There is no sweeter bird song than that of the robin.  At home I love to walk, in the evenings of spring and early summer, along a shaded by-path and listen to their vespers.  I never fail to return from these walks with a happier view of life, for the vesper song of the robins cannot fail to soothe one’s spirit into tranquility and contentment.

Next: Chapter XXII: Back To Get The Baking Powder