"On one occasion," says Mr Springer, "two men, crossing a small lake in skiff, on their return from putting up hay, discovered a bear swimming from a point of land for the opposite shore. As usual in such cases, temptation silenced prudence--they changed their course, and gave chase. The craft being light, they gained fast upon the bear, who exerted himself to the utmost to gain the shore; but, finding himself an unequal match in the race, he turned upon his pursuers, and swam to meet them. One of the men, a short, thick-set, dare-devil fellow, seized an axe, and, the moment the bear came up, inflicted a blow upon his head. It seemed to make but a slight impression, and before it could be repeated the bear clambered into the boat. He instantly grappled the man who struck him, firmly setting his teeth in his thigh; then, settling back upon his haunches, he raised his victim in the air, and shook him as a dog would a wood-chuck. The man at the helm stood for a moment in amazement, without knowing how to act, and fearing that the bear might spring overboard and drown his companion; but, recollecting the effect of a blow upon the end of a bear's snout, he struck him with a short setting-pole. The bear dropped his victim into the bottom of the boat, sallied and fell overboard, and swam again for the shore. The man bled freely from the bite, and, as the wound proved too serious to allow a renewal of the encounter, they made for the shore. But one thing saved them from being upset: the water proved sufficiently shoal to admit of the bear's getting bottom, from which he sprang into the boat. Had the water been deep, the consequences might have been more serious." From its first to its last stage, the logger's occupation is one of severe toil and frequent peril. When the pioneer's duty is accomplished, and when the hay is made, there is still hard work to be done before he can begin to level the forest giants. No kind of labour, Mr Springer assures us, tests a man's physical abilities and powers of endurance more than boating supplies up river. The wood-cutters come to a fall, and have to land their implements and provisions, and to carry them past it. Their boats, too, must be carried, and that over rocks and fallen trees, through thickets and pathless swamps. Then they come to rapids, up which they have to pole their heavy-laden bateaux. For this work, prodigious skill, nerve, and strength are requisite. Then come the long portages from lake to lake, and the danger of being swamped, when traversing these, by sudden gusts of wind lashing the lake, in a few minutes' time, into foaming waves, in which the deeply-loaded boats could not for a moment live.