Miss Amesbury laughed and said, “You funny child,” and thought her more entertaining than ever.

Up beyond Camp Altamont lay a number of small islands and beyond these the river began to bend and twist in numerous eccentric curves; the woods that bordered it grew denser, the banks swampy.  Signs of human occupation disappeared; there were no more camps; no more cottages.  Great willow trees grew close to the water’s edge, five and six trunks coming out of a single root, the drooping branches sweeping the surface of the river.  In places rotting logs lay half submerged in the water, looking oddly like alligators in the distance.  Usually there would be a turtle sunning himself on the dry end of the log, who craned his neck inquisitively at them as they swept by, as if wondering what strange variety of fish they were.  Hinpoha tried to catch one for a mascot, “because he would look so epic tied to the back of our canoe, swimming along behind us,” but finally gave it up as a bad job, for none of the turtles seemed to share her enthusiasm over the idea, sinking out of sight at the first preliminaries of adoption.  In places the banks, where they were not low and swampy, were perforated like honeycombs with holes some three inches in diameter.

“Oh, what are they?” asked Agony in surprise.  “All snake holes?”

“Bank swallows,” replied Sahwah.  “They make their nests in the mud along river banks that way, until the banks are perfect honeycombs.  I don’t see how each one knows his own nest; they all look alike to me.”

“Maybe they’re all numbered in bird language,” remarked Miss Amesbury, in her delightfully humorous way.

The scenery grew wilder and wilder as they glided forward and the talk gradually became hushed into a half awed contemplation of the wilderness which closed about them.

“I feel as if I were on some great exploring expedition,” exclaimed Sahwah.  “Everything looks so new and undiscovered.  I wish there was something left to discover,” she continued plaintively.  “It’s so discouraging to think that there’s nothing more for explorers to do in this country.  What fun it must have been for La Salle and Pere Marquette and Lewis and Clark to find those big rivers that no white man had ever seen before, and go poking about in the wilderness.  That was the great and only sport; everything else is tame and flat beside it.  I’ll never get done envying those early explorers; how I wish I could have been with them!”

“But Sahwah, girls didn’t go on long exploring journeys,” Gladys interrupted quietly.  “They couldn’t have borne the hardships.”

“Couldn’t they?” Sahwah flashed out quickly.  “How about Sacajawea, I’d like to know?”

“Goodness, who was she?” asked Gladys.