He had proceeded in this way nearly a mile between the slopes of the two mountains, when he came upon a beautiful lakelet whose placid waters filled the valley--now somewhat wider--from side to side. In the shallow water near the shore he could see several small fish basking just below the surface. As for the trail, it had disappeared, and there was no trace of it along either side of the water. Indeed, the steep ridges looked quite impassable, from which he concluded that the path had been made by Indians or wild game, or both, whose objective point was the lake. There could be little doubt that he was the first white person who had penetrated here,--a thought which quite tickled his fancy, so he photographed the lake in proof of this bit of original exploration. He was now obliged to return through the defile, fully convinced that the new trail passed around the outer mountain. Goaded on by swarms of mosquitoes and compelled to wave a leafy branch continually across his heated face, he struck the trail at last, and soon afterward found a sparkling brook at the foot of a high hill. If this was the water mentioned by Reitz, he had come only half the direct distance, in spite of his long, tiresome tramp. He drank, then pressed forward through a region of bogs and woods, crossed a muddy stream on a log, and set off across the four miles of valley. Here the walking was good. The gorge was now plainly in view, and he thought his labors nearly at an end. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time of day to ford the Kah Sha. It had been warm for a week, and the water was high again. Besides, the stream was now swollen with the meltings of the day. Roly could hear an ominous roar long before he could see the river. He encountered it first in the woods, where it spread out into so many channels that each was comparatively shallow. Some of these he crossed on logs, and others he waded without getting very wet, but when he came out upon the open stretch of gravel the outlook was far from encouraging. Compressed into one or two principal channels and filling its banks to the brim, the river was thundering madly down from the gorge. Not a log was in sight, and yet the stream must be crossed three or four times to reach Moran's Camp. Roly's heart sank as he gazed on the hurrying torrent, but he resolved to make the attempt. He therefore returned to the edge of the woods and cut a stout pole with which to try the depth of the water and brace himself against the current. His rubber boots, if his father had left them in the willows, were on the other side of the stream, so it was useless to think of keeping dry.