Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/208

 ; and they were not long in making up their minds what they would do. When Joe Wayring picked up his gun and stepped into Roy's canoe (it was a Rice Laker, and not being decked over, it could easily accommodate him and its owner), the others got into theirs, and the fleet started toward the upper end of the pond.

We have said that Mirror Lake and Sherwin's Pond were fifteen miles apart, and that there were about twelve miles of rapids in the stream by which they were connected. This, of course, would leave three miles of still water; but the trouble was, it could not be made use of by any one going from the pond to the lake. At every one of the points at which the rapids ceased and the stretches of still water began, the banks were high and steep, and so densely covered with briers and bushes that the most active boy would have found it a difficult task to work his way to the water's edge, and an impossible one if he had a canoe on his back. This being the case our six friends had a long portage (they generally called it a "carry") to look forward to; but three of