Gasna Gaowo, this bark
canoe of red elm, was not large, but it was a noble specimen of its
kind, a forest product of Onondaga patience and skill. On either side
near the prow was painted in scarlet a great eagle's eye, and now the
two large red eyes of the canoe gazed ahead into the darkness, seeking
to pierce the unknown.
The canoe went on with a gentle, rocking motion made by the current,
strayed now and then a little way from the cliff, but always came back
to it. The pair of great red eyes stared at the cliff so close and at
the other cliff farther away and at the middle of the stream, which was
now tranquil and unruffled by the wreckage of the forest blown into the
water by the storm. The canoe also looked into one or two little coves,
and seeing nothing there but the river edge bubbling against the stone,
went on, came to a curve, rounded it in an easy, sauntering but skillful
fashion, and entered a straight reach of the stream.
So far the canoe was having a lone and untroubled journey. The river
widening now and flowing between descending banks was wholly its own,
but clinging to the habit it had formed when it started it still hung to
the western bank.
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