This frequent shifting and changing of baggage and canoes exhausted the men, who have not yet recovered from the toils of the long portage.  Three of them were disabled from wounds or bruises.  Laporte, the eldest man of our party, fell with a heavy load, on the great Wunnegum portage, and drove a small knot into his scalp.  The doctor bandaged it, and wondered why he had not fractured his skull.  Yet the old man’s voyageur pride would not permit him to lie idle.  If he died under the carrying-strap, he was determined to die game.

NAMAKAGUN RIVER.—­Early on the 27th we were astir, and followed the path 1050 yards, which we made in two pauses to the banks of the Namakagun River, the most southerly fork of the St. Croix.  We were now on the waters tributary to the Mississippi, and sat down to our breakfast of fried pork and tea with exultation.

Dead pines cover the ground between Lake Polyganum and the Namakagun.  A great fire appears to have raged here formerly, destroying thousands of acres of the most thrifty and tall pines.  Nobody can estimate the extent of this destruction.  The plain is now grown up with poplar, hazle-bush, scrub-oak, and whortleberry.  The river, where the portage strikes it, is about seventy-five feet wide, and shallow, the deepest parts not exceeding eighteen inches.  It is bordered on the opposite side with large pines, hardwood, and spruce.  Observed amygdaloid under foot among the granite, and sandstone boulders.

About one o’clock the baggage and canoes had all come up, and we embarked on the waters of the Namakagun.  Rapids soon obstructed our descent.  At these it was necessary for the men to get out and lift the canoes.  It was soon necessary for us to get out ourselves and walk in the bed of the stream.  It was at last found necessary to throw overboard the kegs of pork, &c., and let them float down.  This they would not do without men to guide them and roll them along in bad places.  Some of the bags from the canoes were next obliged to be put on men’s shoulders to be carried down stream over the worst shallows.  After proceeding in this way probably six or seven miles, we encamped at half-past seven o’clock.  Mr. Johnston, with his canoe, did not come up.  We fired guns to apprize him of our place of encampment, but received no reply.  There had been partial showers during the day, and the weather was dark and gloomy.  It rained hard during the night.  Our canoes were badly injured, the bark peeling off the bows and bottoms.  The men had not yet had time to recover from their bruises on the great Wannegum portage.  Mr. Clary had shot some ducks and pigeons, on which, at his invitation, we made our evening repast, with coffee, an article which he had among his stores.  Some of the men had also caught trout—­this fish being abundant here, though it never descends into the Mississippi.