We had been advised that we should need guides in finding our exits from the lakes, which were obscured by reeds and wild rice.  But no guide was to be had, and we easily found our own way.  The river at the outlet of Bemidji Lake is about one hundred and fifty feet wide, very shallow, and runs swiftly over a bed of large gravel and boulders thickly grown with aquatic grass and weeds.  We had gone but a little way when a rattling ahead told of near proximity to swift and rough water, down which we danced at a speed perilous to the boats, but not to our personal safety.  The river was unusually low, so that the many bouldery rapids which otherwise would have been welcome were now only the vexatious hints of what might have been.  The shallow foam dashed down each rocky ledge without channel or choice, and whichever way we went we soon wished we had gone another.  The rocks were too many for evasion, and the swift current caught our keels upon their half-sunken heads, which held us fast in imminent peril of a swamp or a capsize, our only safety lying in open eyes, quick and skilful use of the paddle or a sudden leap overboard at a critical instant.  Added to these difficulties, a gusty head wind and lively showers obscured the boulders and the few open channels.  So we went on all the forenoon, hampered by our ponchos, poling, drifting, paddling and peering our way, blinded by wind and rain, till we came to the last of these labyrinths, liveliest and most treacherous of all.  We were soaked, and only dreaded an upset for our provisions and equipments.  The rapid was long, rough, swift, crooked.  The Kleiner Fritz led the way into the swirl, and was caught, a hundred feet down, hard and fast by her bow-keel, swung around against another boulder at her stern, and was pinned fast in no sort of danger, the water boiling under and around her, while her captain sat at his leisure as under the inevitable, with a don’t-care-a-dash-ative procrastination of the not-to-be-avoided jump overboard and wade for deeper water.  The Betsy D., following closely, passed the Fritz with a rush which narrowly escaped the impalement of the one by the other’s sharp nose, struck, hung for a moment, while the water dashed over her decks and around her manhole, then washed loose and went onward safely to still water.  The Fritz, solid as the Pyramids, beckoned the Hattie to come on without awaiting the questionable time of the latter’s release; so the namesake of the hazel-eyed and brown-haired Indiana girl came into the boil and bubble, sailed gayly by the troubles of the others, was gliding on toward quiet seas under her skipper’s gleeful whoops, when, bang! went her bow upon a rock, from which a moment’s work freed her:  tz-z-z-z-z-zip crunched her copper nails over another just under water, whence she went bumping and crunching, her captain’s prudent and energetic guidance knocking his flag one way and his wooden hatch the other, till finally his troubles were behind him.  Then the Fritz began to stir.  Her commander went overboard and released her, then leaped astride her deck and paddled cautiously down the rift and slowly down the quieter water below, howling through the pelting rain,