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There were many cedar and tamarack swamps, indeed that was the principal feature, but there were some ridges a little higher where some small pines and beech grew. Now our camp was one place where there was no large timber caused by the stream being dammed by the beaver. Here were some of the real Russian Balsam trees, the most beautiful in shape I had ever seen.
"Yes, I'm Samson's gal, an' I hain't a-goin' ter kill ye this time, Tam'rack, unlessen ye makes me do hit. But, ef ever ye crosses that stile out thar ag'in, so help me God, this gun air goin' ter shoot." Tamarack licked his lips. They had grown dry. He had groveled before a girl but he was to be spared. That was the essential thing. "I promises," he said, and turned, much sobered, to the door.
He was clad in overalls, and in the pockets of his breeches reposed a bulging flask of red liquor, and an unbulging pay envelope. Tamarack had been "railroading" for several months this time. He had made a new record for sustained effort and industry, but now June was beckoning him to the mountains with vagabond yearnings for freedom and leisure. Many things invited his soul.
Like the basin of a great amphitheater the frozen lake lay revealed in the light of the moon and a billion stars. Beyond it rose the spruce forest, black and forbidding. Along its nearer edges stood hushed walls of tamarack, bowed in the smothering clutch of snow and ice, shut in by impenetrable gloom.
Hardly had he thought of this possibility when he was thrilled by a series of long howls, and looking back he discerned a dozen or more dark objects moving swiftly over their trail. Not an eighth of a mile ahead was the tamarack forest. Surely Rod could travel that distance! "Run for it, Rod!" he cried. "You're rested now. I'll stay here and stop 'em!"
There were streams, too, some clear and rippling where the trout flashed and the king-fisher gleamed, others dark and poisonous from the tamarack swamps, where the wanderers had to wade over their knees and carry Adele in their arms. So all day they journeyed 'mid the great forests, with never a hint or token of their fellow-man. But if man were absent, there was at least no want of life.
Stane, as he worked, was very conscious of the girl's presence, and conscious also that from time to time his companion glanced at him, whilst he bent over the tamarack frames, weaving in and out the webbing of caribou raw-hide. Those glances made his heart leap, though he strove hard to appear unconscious of them.
Yet, strange to say, in all the smaller trout-stocked lakes of the region, Fallen Leaf, Cascade, Heather, Lily, Susie, Lucile, Grass, LeConte, Rock Bound, the Velmas, Angora, Echo, Tamarack, Lake of the Woods, Rainbow, Pit, Gilmore, Kalmia, Fontinalis, Eagle, Granite, and as many more, the trout are invariably caught with the fly, though the species most sought after is not the native Tahoe trout, but the eastern brook.
I have said that many of these attempts have ended by bringing the adventurers back to their starting point. I cannot say so much for these schools. The movement that they represent is still floundering about in the tamarack swamps, getting farther and farther into the morass, with little hope of ever emerging.
And much to the girl's surprise, under the direction of the refractory Sotenah, and Old Elk, and Wee Johnnie Tamarack, not only performed with a will the necessary work of the camp the chopping and storing of firewood, the shovelling of paths through the huge drifts, and the drawing of water from the river but took upon themselves numerous other labours of their own initiative.
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