Canoeing in the wilderness

ine who is well acquainted with the Penobscot Indians took me in his wagon to Oldtown to assist me in obtaining an Indian for this expedition. We were ferried across to the I

husetts, partly on account of the smallpox, of which they are very much afraid

perhaps a little above the middle height, with a broad face, and, as others said, perfect Indian features and complexion. His house was a two-story white one with blinds, the best-looking that I noticed there, and as good as an average one on a New England village street. It

the Indian ever dwells to the white man, "Me like to go mysel

ould want a great price. Polis asked at first two dollars a day but agreed to go for a dollar and a half, and fifty cents a week for his canoe. He would come to Bangor with his canoe

r, in preparing for our expedition, purchasing provisions, hard-br

of the land, as I do in Boston. I tried to enter into conversation with him, but as he was puffing under the weight of his canoe, not having the usual apparatus for carrying it, but, above all, as he was an Indian,

Indian, all the baggage he had, beside his axe and gun, was a blanket, which he brought loose in his hand. However, he had laid in a store of tobacco and a new pipe for the excursion. The canoe was sec

ile the stage, which was full of passengers, waited. At length one man came back, while the other kept on. This whole party of hunters declared their intention to stop till the dog was found, but the very obliging driver was ready to wait a spell longer. He was evidently unwilling to lose so many passengers, who would have taken a private conveyance, or

the Road to M

mes in the course of the journey he jumped off, and I saw him dangling by his neck. This dog was depended on to stop bears. He had already stopped one somewhere in New Hampshire, and I can testify that he stop

exion as if he had always lived in the shade, and an intellectual face, and with his quiet manners might have passed for a divinity student who had seen something of the world. I was surprised to find that he was probably the chief white hunter of Maine and was known all along the road. I afterwards heard him spoken of as one who could endure a great deal of exposure and fatigue without showing the effect of it; and he could not only use guns, but make them, being himself a gunsmith. In the spring he had saved

insignificant response. His answer, in such cases, was vague as a puff of smoke, suggesting no responsibility, and if you considered it you would find that you had got nothing out of him. This was instead of the conventional palaver and smartness of the white man, and equally profitable. Most get no more than this out of the Indian

our pipe a little wh

vacant to all neighboring interests, "Me got no pipe"; yet I had seen h

he roadside, close to the wheels, I noticed a splendid great purple fringed orchis which I would fain have stopped the stage to pluck,

that fresh, cool atmosphere the hylas were peeping and the toads ringing about the lake. It was as if

p two or three miles, to camp on one of its islands, but on accoun

TNO

hard biscuit commonly baked in large cak