The Long Labrador Trail Part 5

"Yes, sir, that suits me fine," replied be promptly, and in a tone that left no doubt of the fact that he was glad to go.

"Well, this is Thursday. I'll write my letters tomorrow, and you may go on Sat.u.r.day."

"All right, sir."

The letters were all written and ready for Duncan on Friday night, and he packed sufficient provisions into a waterproof bag I gave him to carry him out, and prepared for an early start in the morning. But the rain that had been falling for several days still poured down on Sat.u.r.day, and he decided to postpone his departure another day in the hope of better weather on Sunday. He needed the time anyway to mend his sealskin boots before starting back, for he had pretty nearly worn them out on the sharp rocks on the portages. The rest of us were well provided with oil-tanned moccasins (sometimes called larigans or shoe-packs), which I have found are the best footwear for a journey like ours. Pete's khaki trousers were badly torn; and Richards and Easton, who wore Mackinaw trousers, were in rags. This cloth had not withstood the hard usage of Labrador travel a week, and both men, when they bad a spare hour, occupied it in sewing on canvas patches, until now there was almost as much canvas patch as Mackinaw cloth in these garments. Richards, however, carried an extra pair of moleskin trousers, and I wore moleskin. This latter material is the best obtainable, so far as my experience goes, for rough traveling in the bush, and my trousers stood the trip with but one small patch until winter came.

Sunday morning was still stormy, but before noon the rain ceased, and Duncan announced his intention of starting homeward at once. We raised our flags and exchanged our farewells and G.o.dspeeds with him. Then he left us, and as he disappeared down the trail a strange sense of loneliness came upon us, for it seemed to us that his going broke the last link that connected us with the outside world. Duncan was always so cheerful, with his quaint humor, and so ready to do his work to the very best of his ability, that we missed him very much, and often spoke of him in the days that followed.

We had made the best of our enforced idleness in this camp to repack and condense and dry our outfit as much as possible. The venison, at the first imperfectly cured, had been so continuously soaked that the most of what remained of it was badly spoiled and we could not use it, and with regret we threw it away. The erbswurst was also damp, and this we put into small canvas bags, which were then placed near the stove to dry.

A rising barometer augured good weather for Monday morning. A light wind scattered the clouds that had for so many days entombed the world in storm and gloom, and the sun broke out gloriously, setting the moisture-laden trees aglinting as though hung with a million pearls and warming the damp fir trees until the air was laden with the forest perfume. It was as though a pall had been lifted from the world. How our hearts swelled with the new enthusiasm of the returned sunshine! It was always so. It seemed as if the long-continued storms bound up our hearts and crushed the buoyancy from them; but the returning sunshine melted the bonds at once and gave us new ambition. A robin sang gayly from a near-by tree--a messenger from the kindlier Southland come to cheer us--and the "whisky jacks," who had not shown themselves for several days, appeared again with their shrill cries, venturing impudently into the very door of our tent to claim sc.r.a.ps of refuse.

I was for moving forward that very afternoon, but some of our things were still wet, and I deemed it better judgment to let them have the day in which to dry and to delay our start until Monday morning.

After supper, in accordance with the Sunday custom established by Hubbard when I was with him, I read aloud a selection from the Testament--the last chapter of Revelation--and then went out of the tent to take the usual nine o'clock weather observation. Between the horizon and a fringe of black clouds that hung low in the north the reflected sun set the heavens afire, and through the dark fir trees the lake stretched red as a lake of blood. I called the others to see it and Easton joined me. We climbed a low hill close at hand to view the scene, and while we looked the red faded into orange, and the lake was transformed into a mirror, which reflected the surrounding trees like an inverted forest. In the direction from which we had come we could see the high blue hills beyond the Nascaupee, very dim in the far distance. Below us the Crooked River lost itself as it wound its tortuous way through the wooded valley that we had traversed. Somewhere down there Duncan was bivouacked, and we wondered if his fire was burning at one of our old camping places.

Darkness soon came and we returned to the tent to find the others rolled in their blankets, and we joined them at once that we might have a good night's rest preparatory to an early morning advance.

Before seven o'clock on Monday morning (July twenty-fourth) we had made our portage to the water that we had supposed to be an arm of Lake Nipishish, but which proved instead to be an expansion of the river into which the lake poured its waters through a short rapid. This rapid necessitated another short portage before we were actually afloat upon the bosom of Nipishish itself. There was not a cloud to mar the azure of the sky, hardly a breath of wind to make a ripple on the surface of the lake, and the morning was just cool enough to be delightful.

It was the kind of day and kind of wilderness that makes one want to go on and on. I felt again the thrill in my blood of that magic something that had held possession of Hubbard and me and lured us into the heart of this unknown land two years before, and as I looked hungrily away toward the hills to the northward, I found myself repeating again one of those selections from Kipling that I had learned from him:

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges-- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

CHAPTER VII

SCOUTING FOR THE TRAIL

Lake Nipishish is approximately twenty miles in length, and at its broadest part ten or twelve miles in width. It extends in an almost due easterly direction from the place where we launched our canoes near its outlet. The sh.o.r.es are rocky and rise gradually into low, well-wooded hills, by which the lake is surrounded. Five miles from the outlet a rocky point juts out into the water, and above the point an arm of the lake reaches into the hills to the northward to a distance of six miles, almost at right angles to the main lake. In the arm there are several small, rocky islands which sustain a scrubby growth of black spruce and fir balsam.

Hitherto the Indian maps had been of little a.s.sistance to us. No estimate of distance could be made from them, and the lakes through which we had pa.s.sed (not all of them shown on the map) were represented by small circles with nothing to indicate at what point on their sh.o.r.es the trail was to be found. Lake Nipishish, however, was drawn on a larger scale and with more detail, and we readily located the trail leading out of the arm which I have mentioned.

After a day's work through several small lakes or ponds, with short intervening portages, and a trail on the whole well defined and easily followed, we came one afternoon to a good-sized lake of irregular shape which Pete promptly named Washkagama (Crooked Lake).

A stream flowed into Washkagama near the place where we went ash.o.r.e, and it seemed to me probable that our route might be along this stream, which it was likely drained lakes farther up; but a search in the vicinity failed to uncover any signs of the trail, and the irregular shape of the lake suggested several other likely places for it. We were, therefore, forced to go into camp, disappointing as it was, until we should know our position to a certainty.

The next day was showery, but we began in the morning a determined hunt for the trail. Stanton remained in camp to make needed repairs to the outfit; Easton went with Pete to the northward, while Richards and I in one of the canoes paddled to the eastern side of the lake arm, upon which we were encamped, to climb a barren hill from which we hoped to get a good view of the country, and upon reaching the summit we were not disappointed. A wide panorama was spread before us. To the north lay a great rolling country covered with a limitless forest of firs, with here and there a bit of sparkling water. A mile from our camp a creek, now and again losing itself in the green woods, rushed down to join Washkagama, anxious to gain the repose of the lake. To the northeast the rugged white hills, that we were hoping to reach soon, loomed up grand and majestic, with patches of snow, like white sheets, spread over their sides and tops. From Nipishish to Washkagama we had pa.s.sed through a burned and rocky country where no new growth save scant underbrush and a few scattering spruce, balsam and tamarack trees had taken the place of the old destroyed forest. The dead, naked tree trunks which, gaunt and weather-beaten, still stood upright or lay in promiscuous confusion on the ground, gave this part of the country from our hilltop view an appearance of solitary desolation that we had not noticed when we were traveling through it. But this unregenerated district ended at Washkagama; and below it Nipishish, with its green-topped hills, seemed almost homelike.

The creek that I have mentioned as flowing into the lake a mile from our camp seemed to me worthy to be explored for the trail, and I determined to go there at once upon our return to camp, while Richards desired to climb a rock-topped hill which held its head above the timber line three or four miles to the northwest, that he might make topographical and geological observations there.

We returned to camp, and Richards, with a package of erbswurst in his pocket to cook for dinner and my rifle on his shoulder, started immediately into the bush, and was but just gone when Pete and Easton appeared with the report that two miles above us lay a large lake, and that they had found the trail leading from it to the creek I had seen from the hill. The lake lay among the hills to the northward, and the bits of water I had seen were portions of it. I was anxious to break camp and start forward, but this could not be done until Richards'

return. Easton, Pete and I paddled up to the creek's mouth, therefore, and spent the day fishing, and landed eighty-seven trout, ranging from a quarter pound to four pounds in weight. The largest ones Stanton split and hung over the fire to dry for future use, while the others were applied to immediate need.

When Richards came into camp in the evening he brought with him an excellent map of the country that he had seen from the hill and reported having counted ten lakes, including the large one that Easton and Pete had visited. He also had found the trail and followed it back.

The next morning some tracking and wading up the creek was necessary before we found ourselves upon the trail with packs on our backs, and before twelve o'clock we arrived with all our outfit at the lake, which we shall call Minisinaqua. It was an exceedingly beautiful sheet of water, the main body, perhaps, ten or twelve miles in length, but narrow, and with many arms and indentations and containing numerous round green islands. The sh.o.r.es and surrounding country were well wooded with spruce, fir, balsam, larch, and an occasional small white birch.

I took my place in the larger canoe with Pete and Easton and left Stanton to follow with Richards. Pete's eyes, as always, were scanning with keen scrutiny every inch of sh.o.r.e. Suddenly he straightened up, peered closely at an island, and in a stage whisper exclaimed "Caribou!

Caribou! Don't make noise! Paddle, quick!"

We saw them then--two old stags and a fawn--on an island, but they had seen us, too, or winded us more likely, and, rushing across the island, took to the water on the opposite side, making for the mainland. We bent to our paddles with all our might, hoping to get within shooting distance of them, but they had too much lead. We all tried some shots when we saw we could not get closer, but the deer were five hundred yards away, and from extra exertion with our paddles, we were unable to hold steady, and missed.

Our canoes were turned into an arm of the lake leading to the northward. Amongst some islands we came upon a flock of five geese--two old ones and three young ones. The old ones had just pa.s.sed through the molting season, and their new wing feathers were not long enough to bear them, and the young ones, though nearly full grown, had not yet learned to fly. Pete brought the mother goose and two of her children down with the shotgun, but father gander and the other youngster escaped, flapping away on the surface of the lake at a remarkable speed, and they were allowed to go with their lives without a chase.

We stumbled upon the trail leading from Lake Minisinaqua, almost immediately upon landing. Its course was in a northerly direction through the valley of a small river that emptied into the lake. This valley was inclosed by low hills, and the country, like that between Washkagama and Lake Minisinaqua, was well covered with the same varieties of small trees that were found there. For a mile and three-quarters, the stream along which the trail ran was too swift for canoeing, but it then expanded into miniature lakes or ponds which were connected by short rapids. Each of us portaged a load to the first pond, where the canoes were to be launched, and I directed Pete and Stanton to remain here, pluck the geese, and prepare two of them for an evening dinner, while Richards, Easton and I brought forward a second load and pitched camp.

This was Easton's twenty-second birthday and it occurred to me that it would be a pleasant variation to give a birthday dinner in his honor and to have a sort of feast to relieve the monotony of our daily life, and give the men something to think about and revive their spirits; for "bucking the trail" day after day with no change but the gradual change of scenery does grow monotonous to most men, and the ardor of the best of them, especially men unaccustomed to roughing it, will become damped in time unless some variety, no matter how slight, can be brought into their lives. A good dinner always has this effect, for after men are immersed in a wilderness for several weeks, good things to eat take the first place in their thoughts and, to judge from their conversation, the attainment of these is their chief aim in life.

My instructions to Pete included the baking of an extra ration of bread to be served hot with the roast geese, and I asked Stanton to try his hand at concocting some kind of a pudding out of the few prunes that still remained, to be served with sugar as sauce, and accompanied by black coffee. Our coffee supply was small and it was used only on Sundays now, or at times when we desired an especial treat.

We were pretty tired when we returned with our second packs and dropped them on a low, bare knoll some fifty yards above the fire where Pete and Stanton were carrying on their culinary operations, but a whiff of roasting goose came to us like a tonic, and it did not take us long to get camp pitched.

"Um-m-m," said Easton, stopping in his work of driving tent pegs to sniff the air now bearing to us appetizing odors of goose and coffee, "that smells like home."

"You bet it does," a.s.sented Richards. "I haven't been filled up for a week, but I'm going to be to-night."

At length dinner was ready, and we fell to with such good purpose that the two birds, a generous portion of hot bread, innumerable cups of black coffee, and finally, a most excellent pudding that Stanton had made out of bread dough and prunes and boiled in a canvas specimen bag disappeared.

How we enjoyed it! "No hotel ever served such a banquet," one of the boys remarked as we filled our pipes and lighted them with brands from the fire. Then with that blissful feeling that nothing but a good dinner can give, we lay at full length on the deep white moss, peacefully puffing smoke at the stars as they blinked sleepily one by one out of the blue of the great arch above us until the whole firmament was glittering with a ma.s.s of sparkling heaven gems. The soft perfume of the forest pervaded the atmosphere; the aurora borealis appeared in the northern sky, and its waves of changing light swept the heavens; the vast silence of the wilderness possessed the world and, wrapped in his own thoughts, no man spoke to break the spell. Finally Pete began a s.n.a.t.c.h of Indian song:

"Puhgedewawa enenewug Nuhbuggesug kamiwauw."

Then he drew from his pocket a harmonica, and for half an hour played soft music that harmonized well with the night and the surroundings; when he ceased, all but Richards and I went to their blankets. We two remained by the dying embers of our fire for another hour to enjoy the perfect night, and then, before we turned to our beds, made an observation for compa.s.s variation, which calculations the following morning showed to be thirty-seven degrees west of the true north.

Paddling through the ponds, polling and tracking through the rapids or portaging around them up the little river on which we were encamped the night before, brought us to Otter Lake, which was considerably larger than Lake Minisinaqua, but not so large as Nipishish. The main body was not over a mile and a half in width, but it had a number of bays and closely connected tributary lakes. Its eastern end, which we did not explore, penetrated low spruce and balsam-covered hills. To the north and northeast were rugged, rock-tipped hills, rising to an elevation of some seven hundred feet above the lake. The country at their base was covered with a green forest of small fir, spruce and birch, and near the water, in marshy places, as is the case nearly everywhere in Labrador, tamarack, but the hills themselves had been fire swept, and were gray with weather-worn, dead trees. On the summits, and for two hundred feet below, bare basaltic rock indicated that at this elevation they had never sustained any growth, save a few straggling bushes. On some of these hills there still remained patches of snow of the previous winter.

We paddled eastward along the northern sh.o.r.e of the lake. Once we saw a caribou swimming far ahead of us, but he discovered our approach and took to the timber before we were within shooting distance of him. A flock of sawbill ducks avoided us. No sign of Indians was seen, and four miles up the lake we stopped upon a narrow, sandy point that jutted out into the water for a distance of a quarter mile, to pitch camp and scout for the trail. All along the point and leading back into the bush, were fresh caribou tracks, where the animals came out to get the benefit of the lake breezes and avoid the flies, which torment them terribly. Natives in the North have told me of caribou having been worried to death by the insects, and it is not improbable. The "bulldogs" or "stouts," as they are sometimes called, which are as big as b.u.mblebees, are very vicious, and follow the poor caribou in swarms.

The next morning a caribou wandered down to within a hundred and fifty yards of camp, and Pete and Stanton both fired at it, but missed, and it got away unscathed.

After breakfast, with Pete and Easton, I climbed one of the higher hills for a view of the surrounding country. Near the foot of the hill, and in the depth of the spruce woods, we pa.s.sed a lone Indian grave, which we judged from its size to be that of a child. It was inclosed by a rough fence, which had withstood the pressure of the heavy snows of many winters and a broken cross lay on it. From the summit of the hill we could see a string of lakes extending in a general northwesterly direction until they were lost in other hills above, and also numerous lakes to the south, southwest, east and northeast. We could count from one point nearly fifty of these lakes, large and small. To the north and northwest the country was rougher and more diversified, and the hills much higher than any we had as yet pa.s.sed through.

Down by our camp it had been excessively warm, but here on the hilltop a cold wind was blowing that made us shiver. We found a few scattered dry sticks, and built a fire under the lee of a high bowlder, where we cooked for luncheon some pea-meal porridge with water that Pete, with foresight, had brought with him from a brook that we pa.s.sed half way down the hillside. We then continued our scouting tour several miles inland, climbing two other high hills, from one of which an excellent view was had of the string of lakes penetrating the northwestern hills.

Everywhere so far as our vision extended the valleys were comparatively well wooded, but the treeless, rock-bound hills rose grimly above the timber line.

When we returned to camp we were still unsettled as to where the trail left the lake, but there was one promising bay that had not been explored, and Richards and Easton volunteered to take a canoe and search this bay. They were supplied with tarpaulin, blankets, an ax and one day's rations, and started immediately.

I felt some anxiety as to our slow progress. August was almost upon us and we had not yet reached Seal Lake. Here, as at other places, we had experienced much delay in finding the trail, and we did not know what difficulties in that direction lay before us. I had planned to reach the George River by early September, and the question as to whether we could do it or not was giving me much concern.

Pete and Stanton had been in bed and asleep for an hour, but I was still awake, turning over in my mind the situation, and planning to-morrow's campaign, when at ten o'clock I heard the soft dip of paddles, and a few moments later Richards and Easton appeared out of the night mist that hung over the lake, with the good news that they had found the trail leading northward from the bay.

CHAPTER VIII

SEAL LAKE AT LAST