The Long Labrador Trail Part 3

"I don't believe you'd have hit him if he hadn't winded you," Stanton remarked. "The trouble with you, Pete, is you can't shoot."

"No caribou fever, me," rejoined Pete, with righteous indignation at such a suggestion. "Kill plenty moose, kill red deer; never have moose fever, never have deer fever." Then turning to me he asked, "You want caribou, Mr. Wallace?"

"Yes," I answered, "I wish we could get some fresh meat, but we can wait a few days. We have enough to eat, and I don't want to take time to hunt now."

"Plenty signs. I get caribou any day you want him. Tell me when you want him, I kill him," Pete answered me, ignoring the criticisms of the others as to his marksmanship and hunting prowess. All that day and all the next the men let no opportunity pa.s.s to guy Pete about his lost caribou, and on the whole he took the banter very good-naturedly, but once confided to me that "if those boys get up early, maybe they see caribou too and try how much they can do."

After breakfast Pete and I paddled to the other end of the little lake to pick up the trail while the others broke camp. In a little while he located it, a well-defined path, and we walked across it half a mile to another and considerably larger lake in which was a small, round, moundlike, spruce-covered island so characteristic of the Labrador lakes.

On our way back to the first lake Pete called my attention to a fresh caribou track in the hard earth. It was scarcely distinguishable, and I had to look very closely to make it out. Then he showed me other signs that I could make nothing of at all--a freshly turned pebble or broken twig. These, he said, were fresh deer signs. A caribou had pa.s.sed toward the larger lake that very morning.

"If you want him, I get him," said Pete. I could see he felt rather deeply his failure of the morning and that he was anxious to redeem himself. I wanted to give him the opportunity to do so, especially as the young men, unused to deprivations, were beginning to crave fresh meat as a relief from the salt pork. At the same time, however, I felt that the fish we were pretty certain to get from this time on would do very well for the present, and I did not care to take time to hunt until we were a little deeper into the country. Therefore I told him, "No, we will wait a day or two."

Pete, as I soon discovered, had an insatiable pa.s.sion for hunting, and could never let anything in the way of game pa.s.s him without qualms of regret. Sometimes, where a caribou trail ran off plain and clear in the moss, it was hard to keep from running after it. Nothing ever escaped his ear or eye. He had the trained senses and instincts of the Indian hunter. When I first saw him in New York he looked so youthful and evidently had so little confidence in himself, answering my question as to whether he could do this or that with an aggravating "I don't know," that I felt a keen sense of disappointment in him. But with every stage of our journey he had developed, and now was in his element. He was quite a different individual from the green Indian youth whom I had first seen walking timidly beside the railway conductor at the Grand Central Station in New York.

The portage between the lakes was an easy one and, as I have said, well defined, and we reached the farther sh.o.r.e of the second lake early in the afternoon. Here we found an old Indian camping ground covering several acres. It had evidently been at one time a general rendezvous of the Indians hunting in this section, as was indicated by the large number of wigwams that had been pitched here. That was a long while ago, however, for the old poles were so decayed that they fell into pieces when we attempted to pick them up.

There was no sign of a trail leading from the old camp ground, and I sent Pete and Richards to circle the bush and endeavor to locate one that I knew was somewhere about, while I fished and Stanton and Duncan prepared an early supper. A little later the two men returned, unsuccessful in their quest. They had seen two or three trails, any of which might be our trail. Of course but one of them _could_ be the right one.

This report was both perplexing and annoying, for I did not wish to follow for several days a wrong route and then discover the error when much valuable time had been lost.

I therefore decided that we must be sure of our position before proceeding, and early the following morning dispatched Richards and Pete on a scouting expedition to a high hill some distance to the northeast that they might, from that view-point, note the general contour of the land and the location of any visible chain of lakes leading to the northwest through which the Indian trail might pa.s.s, and then endeavor to pick up the trail from one of these lakes, noting old camping grounds and other signs. As a precaution, in case they were detained over night each carried some tea and some erbswurst, a rifle, a cup at his belt and a compa.s.s. When Pete took the rifle he held it up meaningly and said, "Fresh meat to-night. Caribou," and I could see that he was planning to make a hunt of it.

When they were gone, I took Easton with me and climbed another hill nearer camp, that I might get a panoramic view of the valley in which we were camped. From this vantage ground I could see, stretching off to the northward, a chain of three or four small lakes which, I concluded, though there was other water visible, undoubtedly marked our course. Far to the northwest was a group of rugged, barren, snow-capped mountains which were, perhaps, the "white hills," behind which the Indians had told us lay Seal Lake. At our feet, sparkling in the sunlight, spread the lake upon whose sh.o.r.es our tent, a little white dot amongst the green trees, was pitched. A bit of smoke curled up from our camp fire, where I knew Stanton and Duncan were baking "squaw bread."

We returned to camp to await the arrival and report of Richards and Pete, and occupied the afternoon in catching trout which, though more plentiful than in the first lake, were very small.

Toward evening, when a stiff breeze blew in from the lake and cleared the black flies and mosquitoes away. Easton took a canoe out, stripped, and sprang into the water, while I undressed on sh.o.r.e and was in the midst of a most refreshing bath when, suddenly, the wind died away and our tormentors came upon us in clouds. It was a scramble to get into our clothes again, but before I succeeded in hiding my nakedness from them, I was pretty severely wounded.

It was scarcely six o'clock when Richards and Pete walked into camp and proudly threw down some venison. Pete had kept his promise. On the lookout at every step for game, he had espied an old stag, and, together, he and Richards had stalked it, and it had received bullets from both their rifles. I shall not say to which hunter belonged the honor of killing the game. They were both very proud of it.

But best of all, they had found, to a certainty, the trail leading to one of the chain of little lakes which Easton and I had seen, and these lakes, they reported, took a course directly toward a larger lake, which they had glimpsed. I decided that this must be the lake of which the Indians at Northwest River had told us--Lake Nipishish (Little Water). This was very gratifying intelligence, as Nipishish was said to be nearly half way to Seal Lake, from where we had begun our portage on the Nascaupee.

What a supper we had that night of fresh venison, and new "squaw bread," hot from the pan!

In the morning we portaged our outfit two miles, and removed our camp to the second one of the series of lakes which Easton and I had seen from the hill, and the fourth lake after leaving the Nascaupee River.

The morning was fearfully hot, and we floundered through marshes with heavy packs, bathed in perspiration, and fairly breathing flies and mosquitoes. Not a breath of air stirred, and the humidity and heat were awful. Stanton and Duncan remained to pitch the tent and bring up some of our stuff that had been left at the second lake, while Richards, Easton, Pete and I trudged three miles over the hills for the caribou meat which had been cached at the place where the animal was killed, Richards and Pete having brought with them only enough for two or three meals.

The country here was rough and broken, with many great bowlders scattered over the hilltops. When we reached the cache we were ravenously hungry, and built a fire and had a very satisfying luncheon of broiled venison steak and tea. We bad barely finished our meal when heavy black clouds overcast the sky, and the wind and rain broke upon us in the fury of a hurricane. With the coming of the storm the temperature dropped fully forty degrees in half as many minutes, and in our dripping wet garments we were soon chilled and miserable. We hastened to cut the venison up and put it into packs, and with each a load of it, started homeward. On the way I stopped with Pete to climb a peak that I might have a view of the surrounding country and see the large lake to the northward which he and Richards had reported the evening before. The atmosphere was sufficiently clear by this time for me to see it, and I was satisfied that it was undoubtedly Lake Nipishish, as no other large lake had been mentioned by the Indians.

We hastened down the mountain and made our way through rain-soaked bushes and trees that showered us with their load of water at every step, and when at last we reached camp and I threw down my pack, I was too weary to change my wet garments for dry ones, and was glad to lie down, drenched as I was, to sleep until supper was ready.

None of our venison must be wasted. All that we could not use within the next day or two must be "jerked," that is, dried, to keep it from spoiling. To accomplish this we erected poles, like the poles of a wigwam, and suspended the meat from them, cut in thin strips, and in the center, between the poles, made a small, smoky fire to keep the greenbottle flies away, that they might not "blow" the venison, as well as to aid nature in the drying process.

All day on July seventh the rain poured down, a cold, northwest wind blew, and no progress was made in drying our meat. There was nothing to do but wait in the tent for the storm to clear.

When Pete went out to cook dinner I told him to make a little corn meal porridge and let it go at that, but what a surprise he had for us when, a little later, dripping wet and hands full of kettles, he pushed his way into the tent! A steaming venison potpie, broiled venison steaks, hot fried bread dough, stewed prunes for dessert and a kettle of hot tea! All experienced campers in the north woods are familiar with the fried bread dough. It is dough mixed as you would mix it for squaw bread, but not quite so stiff, pulled out to the size of your frying pan, very thin, and fried in swimming pork grease. In taste it resembles doughnuts. Hubbard used to call it "French toast." Our young men had never eaten it before, and Richards, taking one of the cakes, asked Pete:

"What do you call this?"

"I don't know," answered Pete.

"Well," said Richards, with a mouthful of it, "I call it darn good."

"That's what we call him then," retorted Pete, "darn good."

And so the cakes were christened "darn goods," and always afterward we referred to them by that name.

The forest fire which I have mentioned as having swept this country to the sh.o.r.es of Grand Lake some thirty-odd years ago, had been particularly destructive in this portion of the valley where we were now encamped. The stark dead spruce trees, naked skeletons of the old forest, stood all about, and that evening, when I stepped outside for a look at the sky and weather, I was impressed with the dreariness of the scene. The wind blew in gusts, driving the rain in sheets over the face of the hills and through the spectral trees, finally dashing it in bucketfuls against our tent.

The next forenoon, however, the sky cleared, and in the afternoon Richards and I went ahead in one of the canoes to hunt the trail. We followed the north sh.o.r.e of the lake to its end, then portaged twenty yards across a narrow neck into another lake, and keeping near the north sh.o.r.e of this lake also, continued until we came upon a creek of considerable size running out of it and taking a southeasterly course.

Where the creek left the lake there was an old Indian fishing camp. It was out of the question that our trail should follow the valley of this creek, for it led directly away from our goal. We, therefore, returned and explored a portion of the north sh.o.r.e of the lake, which was very bare, bowlder strewn, and devoid of vegetation for the most part--even moss.

Once we came upon a snow bank in a hollow, and cooled ourselves by eating some of the snow. Our observations made it quite certain that the trail left the northern side of the second lake through a bowlder-strewn pa.s.s over the hills, though there were no visible signs of it, and we climbed one of the hills in the hope of seeing lakes beyond. There were none in sight. It was too late to continue our search that day and we reluctantly returned to camp. Our failure was rather discouraging because it meant a further loss of time, and I had hoped that our route, until we reached Nipishish at least, would lie straight and well defined before us.

Sunday was comfortably cool, with a good stiff breeze to drive away the flies. I dispatched Richards, with Pete and Easton to accompany him, to follow up our work of the evening before, and look into the pa.s.s through the hills, while I remained behind with Stanton and Duncan and kept the fire going under our venison.

I Had expected that Duncan, with his lifelong experience as a native trapper and hunter in the Labrador interior, would be of great a.s.sistance to us in locating the trail; but to my disappointment I discovered soon after our start that he was far from good even in following a trail when it was found, though he never got lost and could always find his way back, in a straight line, to any given point.

The boys returned toward evening and reported that beyond the hills, through the pa.s.s, lay a good-sized lake, and that some signs of a trail were found leading to it. This was what I had hoped for.

Our meat was now sufficiently dried to pack, and, anxious to be on the move again, I directed that on the morrow we should break camp and cross the hills to the lakes beyond.

CHAPTER V

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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.sed, 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 quant.i.ty 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.