We paddled on our knees that morning, for the waves were choppy. By
ten o'clock the bands of cloud had merged into a dun canopy, and by
noon a slow, cold rain was drizzling. I dreaded a halt, but the
necessity pressed. I selected a small cove, well tree-grown, and we
turned our canoes inland.

Fortunately the rain, though persistent, had been gentle, and had not
penetrated far under the heavy foliaged pines. We selected a clump of
large trees, chopped the lower branches, and scraping away the surface
layer of moss and needles found dry ground. Here we piled the cargo in
two mounds, which we hooded with tarpaulins and with our overturned
canoes. Our provisions were snug enough; it was ourselves who were in
dreary estate.

It rained all the afternoon, stopped for a half hour at sunset, when
the sky, for a few moments, showed streaks of red, then closed in for a
night's drizzle. I had built what shelter I could for the woman out of
boughs covered with sheets of paper birch and elm. I had made a
similar shelter for myself that I might not seem to discriminate too
much in favor of the Englishman, and had told the men to do the same.
But they were indolent, and stopped at chopping a few hemlock boughs,
which they laid across crotched aspens. In truth, our shelters
accomplished little against the cold and wet. Do what we could, we had
great discomfort, and morning found the rain still dripping and the sky
still unbroken gray.

And so it went for three days. The north country has such storms in
the spring, and they chill all beauty out of the woods. We could do
nothing. We kept what fire we could, regummed the seams of the canoes,