“Him Big Umsaskis. Him ’bout ten mile up um stream.”
“How’s Sicum this morning?” Jack asked, leaning back to pat the shaggy head.
“Him heap better. No well yet. Not so much scared now.”
They found the stream joining Churchill Lake with the Big Umsaskis, a little larger than the one they had traversed the day before, but it was very swift and rocky and their progress was painfully slow. It seemed to the eager boys that they would hardly more than get into the canoe when they would have to clamber out and drag it around some obstruction.
“What time is it?” Jack asked late in the afternoon, as they were resting, after dragging the canoe over a particularly difficult place.
Rex laughed.
“That reminds me of the darkie who was in jail for life. A friend went to see him and as he was leaving the prisoner asked him what time it was. The friend replied, “Wha’ for you wan’ know the time? Youse ain’t going nowhere.”
“And it doesn’t seem as though we were doing much better just at present,” Jack laughed.
They entered the foot of Big Umsaskis just after five o’clock and decided to make camp for the night, as they were all very tired.
“I feel as though we had made about a hundred miles instead of ten to-day,” Jack declared, as he threw himself down on the ground.