The downward way was easier, and we had cleared away, in the upward struggle, such obstructions as were within our control.  Still, we travelled slowly and wearily, and came out of our first day’s homeward work wet and worn into a camp in the high grass a good twenty miles from the start of the morning.  We drew the canoes from the water, made our beds of blankets inside, lashed our paddles to the masts for ridge-poles, thatched our little cabins with our rubber blankets, hung our mosquito-bars beneath, then cooked and ate under the flare of our camp-fire, and sought our canoe-beds for that sweet sleep which comes of weariness of body, but not of mind, under the bright stars and broad-faced moon shining with unwonted clearness in that clear air.

The night proved very cool.  Our outer garments, wet from so much leaping in and out of the canoes, and rolled up for storage on the decks over night, were found in the early morning frozen stiff, and had to be thawed before we could unroll them.  The thermometer registered 33 deg. after six o’clock, and frost lay upon all our surroundings.

For two and a half days our course was down a stream winding gracefully through a broad region of savanna country, occasionally varied by the crossing of low sandy ridges beautifully graved by lofty yellow pines.  In the savannas the shores are made of black soil drifted in, and forming, with the dense mass of grass-roots, a tough compound in which the earthy and vegetable parts are about equal, while the tall grass, growing perpendicularly from the shore, makes a stretch of walls on either side, the monotony of which becomes at last so tiresome that a twenty-feet hill, a boulder as large as a bushel basket or a tree of unusual size or kind becomes specially interesting.  Standing on tiptoe in the canoes, we could see nothing before or around us but a boundless meadow, with here and there a clump of pines, and before and behind the serpent-like creepings of the river.  The only physical life to be seen was in the countless ducks, chiefly of the teal and mallard varieties, a few small birds and the fish—­lake-trout, grass-bass, pickerel and sturgeon—­constantly darting under and around us or poised motionless in water so clear that every fin and scale was seen at depths of six and eight feet.  The ducks were exceedingly wild—­something not easily accounted for in that untroubled and uninhabited country; but we were readily able to reinforce our staple supplies with juicy birds and flaky fish broiled over a lively fire or baked under the glowing coals.

[Illustration:  A BLOW ON BALL CLUB LAKE.]