Some half a mile up the lake, we saw a great turtle sunning himself on a rock which was partly out of water.  He was twice as large as any of the fresh-water kind I had ever seen.  His shell was all of two feet in diameter, and his scaly arms, as they hung loosely over the side of the rock, were as large as the wrists of a man.  He was some six or eight rods from us, and Spalding gave him a shot with his rifle.  The ball glanced harmlessly from his massive shell against the ledge behind him, and starting from his sleep, he clambered lazily and clumsily into the water.

We threw out a trolling line as we passed up the lake; but we caught no trout.  Along the shore, however, we caught small ones in plenty with the fly.  These shore trout, as I call them, seem to be a distinct species, differing in many respects from the other trout of the lakes or streams.  They are uniform in size, rarely exceeding a quarter of a pound in weight.  They are of a whitish color, longer in proportion than the lake, river, or brook trout, have fewer specks upon them, and those not of a golden hue, but rather like freckles.  They are found among the broken rocks where the shores are bold and bluff, or near the mouths of the cold brooks that come down from the hills.  I caught them at every trial, and whenever we wanted them for food.  Their flesh is white and excellent—­better, to my taste, than that of any other fish of these waters.

We rejoined our companions in a little bay that lay quietly around a rocky promontory, where we found them enjoying a dinner of venison and trout, under the shade of some huge firtrees, by the side of a beautiful spring that came bubbling up, in its icy coldness, from beneath the tangled roots of a stinted and gnarled birch.  Happily, there was enough for us all, and we accepted at once the invitation extended to us to dine.  Towards evening, we rowed back to our shanty.  The breeze had entirely ceased, and the lake lay still and smooth; not a wave agitated its surface, not a ripple passed across its stirless bosom; the woods along the shore, and the mountains in the back ground, the glowing sunlight upon the hill-tops were mirrored back from its quiet depths as if there were other forests, and other mountains and hills glowing in the evening sunshine away down below, twins to those above and around us.  We saw on our return along the beach, the track of a bear in the sand, that had been made during the day, and we had some talk of trying the scent of our dogs upon it.  But it was too near night, to allow of a hope of securing him, even if the dogs could follow, and we gave up the idea, promising to attend to bruin’s case another day.

As we sat with our meerschaums, in the evening, speculating upon the chances of securing a bear, or a moose, before leaving the woods, a wolf lifted up his voice on the hill opposite as, and made the old forest ring again with his howling.  He was answered as in the night previous, from away down the lake, and by another from the hill back of us, and another still from the narrow gorge above the head of the lake.  However discordant the music appeared to us, they seemed to enjoy it, for they kept it up at intervals during all the early part of the night.