When he returned on board, it was to take the oar of a poor, delicate-looking boy, one of the company of soldiers, who from the first had suffered with bleeding at the nose on every unusual exertion.  I was not surprised, on inquiring, to find that this lad was a recruit just entered the service.  He passed by the name of Gridley, but that was undoubtedly an assumed name.  He had the appearance of having been delicately nurtured, and had probably enlisted without at all appreciating the hardships and discomforts of a soldier’s life.  This is evident from the dissatisfaction he always continued to feel, until at length he deserted from his post.  This was some months subsequent to the time of which I am writing.  He was once retaken, and kept for a time in confinement, but immediately on his release deserted again, and his remains were found the following spring, not many miles from the fort.  He had died, either of cold or starvation.  This is a sad interlude—­we will return to our boating.

With all our tugging and toiling, we had accomplished but thirteen miles since leaving the Kakalin, and it was already late when we arrived in view of the “Grande Chute,” near which we were to encamp.

We had passed the “Little Chute” (the spot where the town of Appleton now stands) without any further observation than that it required a vast deal of extra exertion to buffet with the rushing stream and come off, as we did, victorious.

The brilliant light of the setting sun was resting on the high wooded banks through which broke the beautiful, foaming, dashing waters of the Chute.  The boat was speedily turned towards a little headland projecting from the left bank, which had the advantage of a long strip of level ground, sufficiently spacious to afford a good encamping ground.  I jumped ashore before the boat was fairly pulled up by the men, and with the Judge’s help made my way as rapidly as possible to a point lower down the river, from which, he said, the best view of the Chute could be obtained.  I was anxious to make a sketch before the daylight quite faded away.

The left bank of the river was to the west, and over a portion less elevated than the rest the sun’s parting rays fell upon the boat, the men with their red caps and belts, and the two tents already pitched.  The smoke now beginning to ascend from the evening fires, the high wooded bank beyond, up which the steep portage path could just be discerned, and, more remote still, the long stretch of waterfall now darkening in the shadow of the overhanging forests, formed a lovely landscape, to which the pencil of an artist could alone do justice.

This was my first encampment, and I was quite enchanted with the novelty of everything about me.

The fires had been made of small saplings and underbrush, hastily collected, the mildness of the weather rendering anything beyond what sufficed for the purposes of cooking and drying the men’s clothes, superfluous.  The soldiers’ tent was pitched at some distance from our own, but not too far for us to hear distinctly their laughter and apparent enjoyment after the fatigues of the day.