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60 one’s self on a swaying tuft of grass, fighting the vicious insects was no graceful task! Alders and swamp willows barred his path and creeping vines sought to trip him, and it  was not long before he was in a fine condition of perspiration—and exasperation as  well.

At length a well-defined trail came to his rescue and led him around the end of the  first pond and above the head of the second,  although he had to ford a shallow, muddy  stream on the way. More marsh followed and then the ground grew higher and pines  and hemlocks and big-girthed oaks took the  place of the switches. This second pond was a handsome expanse, lying blue and unruffled under the June sky with the reflection of  white, fluffy clouds mirrored therein. As he neared the southern extremity of it, where it  ended in a small cove, his eyes fell on a  canoe formed of a hollowed pine trunk from  which two squaws were fishing. The Indian women viewed him incuriously as he passed  amongst the trees. They were, as he knew, dwellers in Master Eliot’s village, now but a  scant mile distant. Even as he watched, there was a splashing of the still surface beside the dugout and a fine bass leaped into