; and beyond the fact that we were now in the country of the
Adirondack Indians, and not so distant from our destination, could we but have
found the way, I was entirely ignorant. The wisdom of my course was soon the
more apparent; for, with all his pains, Ballantrae was no further advanced than
myself. He knew we must continue to go up one stream; then, by way of a portage,
down another; and then up a third. But you are to consider, in a mountain
country, how many streams come rolling in from every hand. And how is a
gentleman, who is a perfect stranger in that part of the world, to tell any one
of them from any other? Nor was this our only trouble. We were great novices,
besides, in handling a canoe; the portages were almost beyond our strength, so
that I have seen us sit down in despair for half an hour at a time without one
word; and the appearance of a single Indian, since we had now no means of
speaking to them, would have been in all probability the means of our
destruction. There is altogether some excuse if Ballantrae showed something of a
glooming disposition; his habit of imputing blame to others, quite as capable as
himself, was less tolerable, and his language it was not always easy to accept.
Indeed, he had contracted on board the pirate ship a manner of address which was
in a high degree unusual between gentlemen; and now, when you might say he was
in a fever, it increased upon him hugely.
    The third day of these wanderings, as we were carrying the canoe upon a
rocky portage, she fell, and was entirely bilged. The portage was between two
lakes, both pretty extensive; the track, such as it was, opened at both ends
upon the water, and on both hands was enclosed by the unbroken woods; and the
sides of the lakes were quite impassable with bog: so that we beheld ourselves
not only condemned to go without our boat and the greater part of our
provisions, but to plunge at once into impenetrable thickets and to desert what
little guidance we still had - the course of the river. Each stuck his pistols
in his belt, shouldered an axe, made a pack of his treasure and as much food as
he could stagger under; and deserting the rest of our possessions, even to our
swords, which would have much embarrassed us among the woods, we set forth on
this deplorable adventure. The labours of Hercules, so finely described by
Homer, were a trifle