Bread he went without until he had the luck to bring down a moose. Returning to an Indian encampment he had passed through, he traded the carcass for a little bag of flour and a tin of baking-powder.
His sufferings were chiefly from thirst, for he was crossing a plateau, and he did not know the location of the springs.
Excepting this party of Indians, he met no soul upon the way. For the most part the rough wagon trail led him through a forest of lofty, slender aspen-trees, with snowy shafts and twinkling, green crowns.
There were glades and meadows, carpeted with rich grass patterned with flowers, and sometimes the road bordered a spongy, dry muskeg.
All the country was flat, and Sam received the impression that he was journeying on the floor of the world. Consequently, when he came without warning to the edge of a gigantic trough, and saw the river flowing a thousand feet below, the effect was stunning.
At any other time Sam would have lingered and marvelled; now, seeing some huts below, he frowned and thought: "I'll have to submit to be questioned there."
This was Spirit River Crossing. The buildings consisted of a little company store, a tiny branch of the French outfit, kept by a native, and the police "barracks," which housed a solitary corporal.
The coming of a white man was an event here, and when Sam got down the hill the company man and the policeman made him heartily welcome, glancing curiously at the slenderness of his outfit. They wanted to hear the latest news of the settlement, and Sam gave it, suppressing only the principal bit. He left that to be told by the next traveller.
In the meantime he hoped to bury himself farther in the wilderness. As soon as he told his name Sam saw by their eyes that they were acquainted with his earlier adventures. Everything is known up north.
In answer to Sam's questions, they informed him there was first-rate bottom-land fifteen miles up the river on the other side. This was the famous Spirit River land, eighteen inches of black loam on a sandy subsoil.