W. L. Alden

“ I’ve known a canoeist to have a canoe so leaky that he spent half his time bailing her out, and rigged in such a way that she would neither sail nor do anything in a breeze except capsize; and yet he was never tired of boasting of the immense superiority [22] of his canoe. There’s a great deal of suffering in canoeing,” continued the Commodore, musingly, “but its effects on the moral character are priceless. ”

“ At this rate we’ll get somewhere in the course of the summer.”
“There isn’t any use in tiring ourselves out for nothing,” exclaimed Harry. “Boys! we’ll make that sand-spit right ahead of us, and wait there till the wind goes down.”
“All right,” said Joe. “Only it’s a pity to go ashore when the tide is helping us along so beautifully. That is, the Commodore said it would help us, and of course he is right.”
“No reflections on the Commodore will be allowed,” cried Harry. “Bail out your canoes, you two fellows, and Charley and I will wait for you.” ”

“ From the books which they had read the boys had learned that there is, if anything, more fun in cruising on a narrow stream than in sailing on broad rivers; that running rapids is a delightful sport, and that streams should always be descended instead of ascended in a canoe. They, therefore, wanted to discover a narrow stream with safe and easy rapids, and also to cruise on some lake or wide river where they could test the canoes under sail and under paddle in rough water. ”

“ The ‘Rice Lake’ canoe is nearly flat-bottomed, and so stiff that there is no danger that you will capsize her. She paddles easily, and sails faster than any other canoe. She is roomy, and you can carry about twice as much in her as you can carry in a ‘Rob Roy.’ She has no keel, so that you can run rapids easily in her, and she is built in a peculiar way that makes it impossible for her to leak. Don’t think for a moment of getting any other canoe, for if you do you will never cease to regret it. ”

“ Joe and Tom were now perfectly safe, though miserably wet; but, as the rain had ceased, there was nothing to prevent them from getting dry clothes out of their water-proof bags, and putting them on as soon as they could bail the water out of their canoes. Harry and Charley, seeing their comrades in safety, made haste to get up sail and to stand out into the lake—partly because they did not want to run the risk of being swamped when entering the reeds, and partly because they wanted the excitement of sailing in a gale of wind. ”

“ There’s plenty of room to sleep in her, and her water-tight compartments are what they pretend to be—not a couple of leaky boxes stuffed full of blankets.”
“We have been advised,” began Charley, “to get ‘Shadows’ or ‘Rice’—”
“Don’t you do it,” interrupted the canoeist. “It’s lucky for you that you came to see me. It is a perfect shame for people to try to induce you to waste your money on worthless canoes. Mind you get [16] ‘Rob Roys,’ and nothing else. Other canoes don’t deserve the name. They are schooners, or scows, or canal-boats, but the ‘Rob Roy’ is a genuine canoe.” ”

“ He begged his young friends to pay no attention to those who recommended wooden canoes, no matter what model they might be. “Canvas,” said he, “is the only thing that a canoe should be built of. It is light and strong, and if you knock a hole in it you can mend it in five minutes. If you want to spend a great deal of money and own a yacht that is too small to sail in with comfort and too clumsy to be paddled, [17] buy a wooden canoe; but if you really want to cruise, you will, of course, get canvas canoes.” ”

“ Canoeing at night is always a ticklish business, but on a swift river, full of rapids, as is the Magog, it is exceedingly dangerous. The fire lighted the way for the fleet for a short distance, but before a landing-place was reached a turn on the river shut out the light, and at the same time the noise of a rapid close at hand was heard.
“HE CAUGHT HOLD OF THE ROOT OF A TREE AND KEPT HIS CANOE STATIONARY.”
The boys had no desire to entangle themselves in unknown rapids in the dark, and paddled at once for the shore opposite to that where the fire was raging. ”

“ There’s nothing in my canoe now except my water-proof bag and my blankets. But they’re not of much consequence compared with Tom. Boys, do you really think he’s drowned?”
“Of course he isn’t,” cried Joe. “We’ll find him in a few minutes. He must be somewhere near by, and he’s sleeping so sound that he don’t hear us. You know how hard it is to wake him up.”
“Tom is a first-rate swimmer, and if he has spilt himself out of his canoe and she has sunk, he has swum ashore,” said Charley. “My opinion is that we had better stay just where we are until daylight, and then look for him along the shore. ”

“ Chapter VIII. THERE is no place more unfit for a sudden and unexpected bath than the lock of a canal. The sides and the gates are perpendicular and smooth, and present nothing to which a person in the water can cling. Charley had no difficulty in supporting himself by throwing one arm over the stern of Harry’s canoe, but had he been alone in the lock he would have been in a very unpleasant position. ”

“ I like fun as well as anybody, but I can’t land at Sherbrooke with these trousers.”
“I see Sherbrooke now!” exclaimed Harry; “so you’d better change your clothes while you have a chance.”
Sherbrooke was coming rapidly into sight as the fleet paddled down the stream, and in the course of half an hour the boys landed in the village, near a dam which converted the swift Magog into a lazy little pond. While his comrades drew the canoes out of the water and made them ready to be carted to the St. Francis, Harry went to engage a cart. ”

“ They must know better. However, the subject is a painful one, and we won’t discuss it. Take my advice, my dear boys, and get canvas canoes. All the really good canoeists in the country would say the same thing to you.”
“We must try,” said Joe, as the boys walked back to the Commodore’s office, “to believe that the ‘Rice Laker,’ the ‘Shadow,’ the ‘Rob Roy,’ and the canvas canoe is the best one ever built. It seems to me something like believing that four and one are just the same. Perhaps you fellows can do it, but I’m not strong enough to believe as much as that all at one time.” ”

“ When running directly before the wind the “dandy” is sometimes a dangerous sail, as it is apt to make the canoe broach-to; but with a wind from any other direction than dead aft it is a very useful sail.
The canoes sailed faster than they had sailed the day before, because there was no rough sea to check their headway. They reached Magog at noon, went to the hotel for a good dinner, bought some canvas with which to deck Tom’s canoe, and then looked [59] at the dam which crosses the Magog River a few rods from the lake, and wondered how they were ever to get through the rapids below it. ”

“ Boys, I hereby order every canoe to be loaded with all her ballast and cargo in the after compartment before we start to-morrow.”
“And I want to remind you fellows of one more thing,” said Charley. “When the current is sweeping you toward a concave shore—that is, where the river makes a bend—don’t try to keep your canoe clear of the shore by hard paddling. Just backwater on the side of the canoe that is toward the middle of the river.”
[67]
“That’s Macgregor again!” cried Harry; “but I’d forgotten it. To-morrow we’ll run our rapids in real scientific style.” ”

“ A paddle-wheel steamer can be heard while she is a long way off, but screw-steamers glide along so stealthily that the English canoeists, who constantly meet them on the Mersey, the Clyde, and the lower Thames, have nicknamed them “sudden death.”
Cramped and tired were the canoeists when they reached the nearest island and went ashore to prepare a camp, but they were proud of having sailed sixty miles in one day. As they sat around the fire after supper Harry said, “Boys, we’ve had experience enough by this time to test our different rigs. ”

“ As soon as Joe returned Harry said that he would paddle out into the middle of the river where Charley was last seen, and would let his canoe drift down the rapid, but Tom and Joe insisted that he should do [73] no such thing. Said Joe, “Either Charley is drowned or he isn’t. If he isn’t drowned he is somewhere at the foot of the rapid, where we’ll find him as soon as it gets light. If he is drowned it won’t do him any good for another of us to get drowned.” ”

“ Chapter IV. FROM the books they had read Harry and Joe had learned exactly what to do in case of capsizing under sail, and had often discussed the matter. “When I capsize,” Harry would say, “I shall pull the masts out of her, and she’ll then right of her own accord. Then I shall unship the rudder, put my hands on the stern-post, and raise myself up so that I can straddle the deck, and gradually work my way along until I can get into the cockpit. After that I shall bail her out, step the masts, and sail on again.” ”

“ The man turned to a book in which were contained the express company’s rates of charges, and showed Harry that there was a fixed rate for row-boats and shells.
“But,” said Harry, “a canoe is not a row-boat nor a shell. What justice is there in charging as much for a fourteen-foot canoe as for a forty-foot shell?” ”

“ In the old days when the castle was garrisoned by gay young French officers, and parties of beautiful ladies came up from Montreal to attend the officers’ balls, and the gray old walls echoed to music, and brilliant lights flashed through the windows, the Indians encamped outside the gates must have thought it the most magnificent and brilliant place in the whole world. ”

“ We can’t go canoeing unless we are ready to take risks occasionally. If nobody is ever to take a risk, there ought not to be any canoes, or ships, or railroads.”
“That Sherbrooke postmaster isn’t afraid to take [84] risks,” observed Joe. “If he keeps on telling canoeists that there are no rapids in this river, some of these days he’ll have an accident with a large canoeist and a heavy paddle. ”

“ There, however, were the marks made by its claws on the varnished deck of Joe’s canoe, and Joe’s clothing was torn and stained by his fall. With the daylight they became very courageous, and decided that they had never been in the least afraid of the animal. The so-called wild-cat of Canada, which is really a lynx, is, however, a fierce and vicious animal, and is sometimes more than a match for an unarmed man.
There was a strong west wind blowing when the fleet started, and Chambly Basin was covered with white-caps. ”

“ He was in high spirits at having successfully run a rapid in the dark, and he paddled so carelessly that just [77] as he was within a yard of the shore the canoe ran upon a sunken log, spilled her captain into the water, and then floated off in the darkness and disappeared.
Charley had no difficulty in getting ashore, but he was wet to the skin, and his dry clothes and all his property, except his paddle, had gone on a cruise without him. There was nothing for him to do but to make his way back along the bank to the other boys. This proved to be a tiresome task. ”

“ But perhaps you have already heard enough to make up your minds.”
“We’re farther from making up our minds than ever,” said Harry. “I do wish you would tell us what kind of canoe is really the best.”
“The truth is,” said the Commodore, “that there isn’t much to choose among the different models of canoes, and you’ll find that every canoeist is honestly certain that he has the best one. Now, I won’t undertake to select canoes for you, though I will suggest that a light ‘Rob Roy’ would probably be a [19] good choice for the smallest of you boys. ”

“ If you try to get the sail down without coming up into the wind it will get overboard, and either you will lose it or it will capsize you; you tried it yesterday when a squall came up, and you very nearly came to grief.”
“But you can say the same about any other rig,” exclaimed Joe.
“Of course you can’t very well get any sail down while the wind is in it; but Tom can take in his sharpie-sail without much danger even when he’s running directly before the wind, and Harry and I can let go our halyards and get our lugs down after [119] a fashion, if it is necessary. ”

“ When all was ready the blankets and stores were packed in the Sunshine, the cockpit of which [28] was provided with hatches, which could be locked up, thus making the canoe serve the purpose of a trunk. The four canoes were then sent by rail to Newport, at the southern end of Lake Memphremagog, and a week later the boys followed them, carrying their paddles by hand, for the reason that, if they had been sent with the canoes and had been lost or stolen, it would have been impossible to start on the cruise until new paddles had been procured. ”

“ Harry’s canoe had sustained a little damage where one of the planks had been ground against the rock on which she had hung so long, but it was not enough to cause her to leak, and the injuries of the other canoes were confined to their varnish.
“All the trouble,” remarked Harry, “came from [64] following too close after one another. To-morrow, if we find any more rapids, we will keep the canoes far enough apart, so that if one canoe runs aground the others can turn out for her.” ”

“ At Charley’s suggestion the painter of each canoe was rove through the stern-post instead of the stem-post. By keeping the end of the painter in his hand the canoeist whose canoe ran aground could jump [80] out and feel sure that the canoe could not run away from him, and that he could not turn her broadside to the stream by hauling on the painter, as would have been the case had the painter been rove through the stem-post.
“I want to see that Sherbrooke postmaster!” exclaimed Joe, after running what was the seventh rapid, counting from the dam at Magog. ”