While we were crossing the lake, one day, in canoes loaded with supplies of various descriptions, an amusing, yet rather expensive, incident happened in connection with one of the canoes. Its occupants were George Fenimore, a Mainite Yankee, and Joe Lyon, a French-Canadian. Both were good canoemen, but only Fenimore knew how to swim. They had become grouchy over some subject while crossing the lake, and, as they neared the opposite shore from which they had started, in some manner which I have never understood, the canoe was overturned. Little of its contents was permanently lost, except one box of new axes. The water was about eight feet deep under them. Each man grasped an end of the overturned canoe, and clung to it. Then an argument began between the two disgruntled men, about getting to shore. Lyon wanted Fenimore to let go of the canoe and swim ashore; but this, the latter refused to do. Finally, after considerable loss of time, Joe Lyon, who was nearest to shore, turned his body about, with his face toward the shore, and, letting go of the canoe, went to the bottom of the lake and floundered to gain the shore. He had only to go a short distance before the water became sufficiently shallow for his head to appear, but he was winded, and thoroughly mad. I have always believed that Fenimore purposely overturned the canoe, but if so, he never admitted the fact. The pine timber lying east of Bow String Lake, and included in the survey of 1874 and 1875, was all tributary to waters running north, into the Big Fork River, which empties into the Rainy River. Levels were run across from Bow String Lake into Cut-foot Sioux River, and considerable fall was found. The distance, nearly all the way, was over a marsh. It was shown that a dam could easily be thrown across from bank to bank of the river at the outlet of Bow String Lake, and by thus slightly raising the water in the lake, plus a little work of cleaning out portions of the distance across the marsh, from Bow String Lake to Cut-foot Sioux, the timber could be driven across and into the waters of the Mississippi River. All of this engineering was before the advent of logging railroads. However, before the timber was needed for the Minneapolis market, many logging railroads had been built in various localities in the northern woods, and their practical utility had been demonstrated. When the time came for cutting this timber, a logging railroad was constructed to reach it; and over its tracks, the timber was brought out, thus obviating the necessity of impounding the waters of Bow String Lake. CHAPTER XIV. An Evening Guest--Not Mother's Bread.