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 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 fail-ure 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.