We were very uncertain as to which branch to follow, and Hubbard sent George on a scouting trip up the southerly stream, which we shall call Goose Creek, while he himself climbed a knoll to get a look at the country. A half mile or so up Goose Creek George found a blaze crossing the stream from north to south, which he pronounced a winter blaze made by trappers, as the cuttings were high up on the trees and freshly made. Half a mile above the blaze George came upon the rotten poles of an old Indian wigwam, and this discovery made Hubbard happy; he accepted it as evidence that Goose Creek was the river mapped as the "Northwest" and the Indian route to Michikamau. Accordingly it was decided to follow the southerly branch, and to leave the main stream at this point.
I was glad to leave the valley of the Susan. Our whole course up the valley had been torturous and disheartening. We had been out fifteen days from Northwest River Post and had covered only eighty miles. Hubbard had been ill, and I had been ill. Always, as we pressed onward, I dreaded the prospect of retracing our steps through the Susan Valley. I hated the valley from end to end. I have more reason to hate it now. To me it is the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
VI. SEARCHING FOR A TRAIL
When we portaged into Goose Creek on Friday, July 31st, Hubbard had quite recovered from his illness, I, too, was well again, and our appetites had returned. It is true that my legs and feet were much swollen from the continuous work in the cold river, but the swelling caused me no inconvenience. All of us, in fact, were in better shape for the fight against the wild than at any time since the start.
For three or four miles up Goose Creek the rapids were almost continuous, and we had to portage for practically the whole of the distance. On August 1st and 2d the weather was cold, with a raw wind and a continuous downpour of rain. At night the rain kept up a steady drop, drop, drop through our tent. On the 2d, owing to the inclemency of the weather, we did not travel; but the morning of the 3d brought brilliant sunshine and with the perfume of the forest in our nostrils we pushed on, soon reaching a flatter and a marshy country, where the creek deepened and narrowed with a sluggish current. Here the paddling was good, and for a little way we made rapid progress.
In this marshy stretch by the creek's bank we saw a beaver house, and George stepped out of the canoe to examine it.
"They're livin' here," he remarked. "If we're not too far away when we camp to-night, I'm comin' down with a rifle and watch for 'em. They come out to play in the water in the evenin' and it's not hard to get 'em."
"What's the use of killing them?" I asked. "What could you do with a beaver if you got him?"
"I'd cook it, and we'd have a good snack of beaver meat," said George. "They're the finest kind of eatin', and I'd go a good way for a piece of beaver tail; it's nice and greasy, and better than anything you ever ate."