IDA ASSERTS HER AUTHORITY It was a hot afternoon, and Ida, who was tired of fishing, sat carefully in the middle of a fragile birch canoe.

Her rod lay unjointed beside her, and two or three big trout gleamed in the bottom of the craft, while Weston, who knelt astern, leisurely dipped the single-bladed paddle.

Dusky pines hung over the river, wrapping it in grateful shadow, through which the water swirled crystal clear, and the canoe moved slowly down-stream across the slack of an eddy.
Farther out, the stream frothed furiously among great boulders and then leaped in a wild white rush down a rapid, though here and there a narrow strip of green water appeared in the midst of the latter.

The deep roar it made broke soothingly through the drowsy heat, and Ida listened languidly while she watched the pines slide past.
"I wonder what has become of the major," she said at length, with a little laugh.

"It is too hot for fine casting, and he probably has had enough of it.