WE GO ASTRAY
At half-past four on Monday morning I called the men, and while Pete
was preparing breakfast the rest of us broke camp and made ready for a
prompt start. All were anxious to see behind the range of
bowlder-covered hills and to reach Lake Nipishish, which we felt could
not now be far away. As soon as our meal was finished the larger canoe
was loaded and started on ahead, while Richards, Duncan and I remained
behind to load and follow in the other.
With the rising sun the day had become excessively warm, and there was
not a breath of wind to cool the stifling atmosphere. The trail was
ill-defined and rough, winding through bare glacial bowlders that were
thick-strewn on the ridges; and the difficulty of following it,
together with the heat, made the work seem doubly hard, as we trudged
with heavy packs to the shores of a little lake which nestled in a
notch between the bills a mile and a half away. Once a fox ran before
us and took refuge in its den under a large rock, but save the always
present cloud of black flies, no other sign of life was visible on the
treeless hills. Finally at midday, after three wearisome journeys back
and forth, bathed in perspiration and dripping fly dope and pork
grease, which we had rubbed on our faces pretty freely as a protection
from the winged pests, we deposited our last load upon the shores of
the lake, and thankfully stopped to rest and cook our dinner.
We were still eating when we heard the first rumblings of distant
thunder and felt the first breath of wind from a bank of black clouds
in the western sky, and had scarcely started forward again when the
heavens opened upon us with a deluge.
The brunt of the storm soon passed, but a steady rain continued as we
paddled through the lake and portaged across a short neck of land into
a larger lake, down which we paddled to a small round island near its
lower end. Here, drenched to the bone and thoroughly tired, we made
camp, and in the shelter of the tent ate a savory stew composed of
duck, grouse, venison and fat pork that Pete served in the most
appetizing camp style.
I was astounded by the amount of squaw bread and "darn goods" that the
young men of my party made away with, and began to fear not only for
the flour supply, but also for the health of the men. One day when I
saw one of my party eat three thick loaves of squaw bread in addition
to a fair quantity of meat, I felt that it was time to limit the flour
part of the ration. I expressed my fears to Pete, and advised that he
bake less bread, and make the men eat more of the other food.
"Bread very good for Indian. Not good when white an eat so much. Good
way fix him. Use not so much baking powder, me. Make him heavy,"
suggested Pete.
"No, Pete, use enough baking powder to make the bread good, and I'll
speak to the men. Then if they don't eat less bread of their own
accord, we'll have to limit them to a ration."
I decided to try this plan, and that evening in our camp on the island
I told them that a ration of bread would soon have to be resorted to.
They looked very solemn about it, for the bare possibility of a limited
ration, something that they had never had to submit to, appeared like a
hardship to them.
On Tuesday morning when we awoke the rain was still falling steadily.
During the forenoon the storm abated somewhat and we broke camp and
transferred our goods to the mainland, where the trail left the lake
near a good-sized brook. Our portage led us over small bills and
through marshes a mile and a half to another lake. While Pete remained
at our new camp to prepare supper and Easton stayed with him, the rest
of us brought forward the last load. Richards and I with a canoe and
packs attempted to run down the brook, which emptied into the lake near
our camp; but we soon found the stream too rocky, and were forced to
cut our way through a dense growth of willows and carry the canoe and
packs to camp on our backs.
The rain had ceased early in the afternoon, and the evening was
delightfully cool, so that the warmth of a big camp fire was most
grateful and comforting. Our day's march had carried us into a
well-wooded country, and the spectral dry sticks of the old burnt
forest were behind us. The clouds hung low and threatening, and in the
twilight beyond the glow of our leaping fire made the still waters of
the lake, with its encircling wilderness of fir trees, seem very dark
and somber. The genial warmth of the fire was so in contrast to the
chilly darkness of the tent that we sat long around it and talked of
our travels and prospects and the lake and the wilderness before us
that no white man had ever before seen, while the brook near by
tumbling over its rocky bed roared a constant complaint at our
intrusion into this land of solitude.
The following morning was cool and fine, but showers developed during
the day. Our venison, improderly dried, was molding, and much of it we
found, upon unpacking, to be maggoty. After breakfast I instructed the
others to cut out the wormy parts as far as possible and hang the good
meat over the fire for further drying, while with Easton I explored a
portion of the lake shore in search of the trail leading out. We
returned for a late dinner, and then while Easton, Richards and I
caught trout, I dispatched Pete and Stanton to continue the search
beyond the point where Easton and I had left off. It was near evening
when they came back with the information that they had found the trail,
very difficult to follow, leading to a river, some two miles and a half
beyond our camp. This was undoubtedly the Crooked River, which empties
into Grand Lake close to the Nascaupee, and which the Indians had told
us had its rise in Lake Nipishish.
The evening was very warm, and mosquitoes were so thick in the tent
that we almost breathed them. Stanton, after much turning and
fidgeting, finally took his blanket out of doors, where he said it was
cooler and he could sleep with his head covered to protect him; but in
an hour he was back, and with his blanket wet with dew took his usual
place beside me.
Below the point where the trail enters the Crooked River it is said by
the Indians to be exceedingly rough and entirely impassable. We
portaged into it the next morning, paddled a short distance up the
stream, which is here some two hundred yards in width and rather
shallow, then poled through a short rapid and tracked through two
others, wading almost to our waists in some places. We now came to a
widening of the river where it spread out into a small lake. Near the
upper end of this expansion was an island upon which we found a
long-disused log cache of the Indians. A little distance above the
island what appeared to be two rivers flowed into the expansion.
Richards, Duncan and I explored up the right-hand branch until we
struck a rapid. Upon our return to the point where the two streams
came together we found that the other canoe, against my positive
instructions not to proceed at uncertain points until I had decided
upon the proper route to take, had gone up the branch on the left,
tracked through a rapid and disappeared.
There were no signs of Indians on either of these branches so far as we
could discover, and I was well satisfied that somewhere on the north
bank of the expansion, probably not far from the island and old cache
which we had passed, was the trail. But evening was coming on and rain
was threatening, so there was nothing to do but follow the other canoe,
which had gone blindly ahead, until we should overtake it, as it
contained all the cooking utensils and our tent. This failure of the
men to obey instructions took us a considerable distance out of our way
and cost us several days' time, as we discovered later.
We tracked through some rapids and finally overhauled the others at a
place where the river branched again. It was after seven o'clock, a
drizzling rain was falling, and here we pitched camp on the east side
of the river just opposite the junction of the two branches.
On the west fork and directly across from our camp was a rough rapid,
and while supper was cooking I paddled over with Richards to try for
fish. We made our casts, and I quickly landed a twenty-inch ouananiche
and Richards hooked a big trout that, after much play, was brought
ashore. It measured twenty-two and a half inches from tip to tip and
eleven and a half inches around the shoulders. I had landed a couple
more large trout, when Richards enthusiastically announced that he had
a big fellow hooked. He played the fish for half an hour before he
brought it to the edge of the rock, so completely exhausted that it
could scarcely move a fin. We had no landing net and he attempted to
lift it out by the line, when snap went the hook and the fish was free!
I made a dash, caught it in my hands and triumphantly brought it
ashore. It proved to be an ouananiche that measured twenty-seven and
one-half inches in length by eleven and one-quarter inches in girth.
In our excitement we had forgotten all about supper and did not even
know that it was raining; but we now saw Pete on the further shore
gesticulating wildly and pointing at his open mouth, in pantomime
suggestion that the meal was waiting.
"Well, that _is_ fishing!" remarked Richards. "I never landed a fish
as big as that before."
"Yes," I answered; "we're getting near the headwaters of the river now,
where the big fish are always found."
"I never expected any such sport as that. It's worth the hard work
just for this hour's fishing."
"You'll get plenty more of it before we're through the country. There
are some big fellows under that rapid. The Indians told us we should
find salmon in this section too, but we're ahead of the salmon, I
think. They're hardly due for a month yet."
"Let's show the fellows the trout, first. They're big enough to make
'em open their eyes. Then we'll spring the ouananiche on 'cm and
they'll faint. It'll, be enough to make Easton want to come and try a
cast too."
So when we pushed through the dripping bushes to the tent we presented
only the few big trout, which did indeed create a sensation. Then
Richards brought forward his ouananiche, and it produced the desired
effect. After supper Pete and Easton must try their hand at the fish,
and they succeeded in catching five trout averaging, we estimated, from
two to three pounds each. Richards, however, still held the record as
to big fish, both trout and ouananiche, and the others vowed they would
take it from him if they had to fish nights to do it.
_En route_ up the river, in the afternoon, Pete had shot a muskrat, and
I asked him that night what he was going to do with it.
"I don't know," he answered. "Muskrat no good now."
"Well, never kill any animal while you are with me that you cannot use,
except beasts of prey."
This was one of the rules that I had laid down at the beginning: that
no member of the party should kill for the sake of killing any living
thing. I could not be angry with Pete, however, for he was always so
goodnatured. No matter how sharply I might reprove him, in five
minutes he would be doing something for my comfort, or singing some
Indian song as he went lightheartedly about his work. I understood how
hard it was for him to down the Indian instinct to kill, and that the
muskrat bad been shot thoughtlessly without considering for a moment
whether it were needed or not. The flesh of the muskrat at this season
of the year is very strong in flavor and unpalatable, and besides, with
the grouse that were occasionally killed, the fish that we were
catching, and the dried venison still on hand, we could not well use
it. No fur is, of course, in season at this time of year, and so there
was no excuse for killing muskrats for the pelts.
In the vicinity of this camp we saw some of the largest spruce timber
that we came upon in the whole journey across Labrador. Some of these
trees were fully twenty-two inches in diameter at the butt and perhaps
fifty to sixty feet in height. These large trees were very scattered,
however, and too few to be of commercial value. For the most part the
trees that we met with were six to eight, and, occasionally, ten inches
through, scrubby and knotted. In Labrador trees worth the cutting are
always located near streams in sheltered valleys.
That evening before we retired the drizzle turned to a downpour, and we
were glad to leave our unprotected camp fire for the unwarmed shelter
of our tent. While I lay within and listened to the storm, I wrote in
my diary: "As I lie here, the rain pours upon the tent over my head and
drips--drips--drips through small holes in the silk; the wind sweeps
through the spruce trees outside and a breath of the fragrance of the
great damp forest comes to me. I hear the roar of the rapid across the
river as the waters pour down over the rocks in their course to the
sea. I wonder if some of those very waters do not wash the shores of
New York. How far away the city seems, and how glad I shall be to
return home when my work here is finished!
"This is a feeling that comes to one often in the wilderness. Perhaps
it is a touch of homesickness--a hunger for the sympathy and
companionship of our friends."
The days that followed were days of weary waiting and inactivity. A
cold northeast storm was blowing and the rain fell heavily and
incessantly day and night. Trail hunting was impracticable while the
storm lasted, but the halt offered an opportunity that was taken
advantage of to repair our outfit; also there was much needed mending
to be done, as some of our clothing was badly torn.
Everything we had in the way of wearing apparel was wet, and we set up
our tent stove for the first time, that we might dry our things under
cover. This stove proved a great comfort to us, and all agreed that it
was an inspiration that led me to bring it. It was not an inspiration,
however, but my experience on the trip with Hubbard that taught the
necessity of a stove for just such occasions as this, and for the
colder weather later.
Some of us went to the rapid to fish, but it was too cold for either
fly or bait, and we soon gave it up. I slipped off a rock in the lower
swirl of the rapid, and went into the river over head and ears. Pete,
who was with me, gave audible expression to his amusement at my
discomfiture as I crawled out of the water like a half drowned rat; but
I could see no occasion for his hilarity and I told him so.
This experience dampened my enthusiasm as a fisherman for that day. The
net was set, however, which later yielded us some trout. A fish
planked on a dry spruce log hewn flat on one side, made a delicious
dinner, and a savory kettle of fish chowder made of trout and dried
onions gave us an equally good supper.
On July fifteenth sleet was mingled with the rain in the early morning,
and it was so cold that Duncan used his mittens when doing outdoor
work. Easton was not feeling well, and I looked upon our delay as not
altogether lost time, as it gave him an opportunity to get into shape
again.
A pocket copy of "Hiawatha," from which Stanton read aloud, furnished
us with entertainment. Pete was very much interested in the reading,
and I found he was quite familiar with the legends of his Indian hero,
and he told us some stories of Hiawatha that I had never heard.
"Hiawatha," said Pete, "he the same as Christ. He do anything he want
to." Pete produced his harmonica and proved himself a very good
performer.
July sixteenth was Sunday, and I decided that rain or shine we must
break camp on Monday and move forwards for the inactivity was becoming
unendurable.
A little fishing was done, and Pete landed a twenty-two and
three-quarter inch trout, thus wresting the big-trout record from
Richards. Pete was proud and boasted a great deal of this feat, which
he claimed proved his greater skill as a fisherman, but which the
others attributed to luck.
We were enabled to do some scouting in the afternoon, which resulted in
the discovery that our camp was on an island. Nowhere could we find
any Indian signs, and we were therefore quite evidently off the trail.