The outfit made about four loads each for them, and when it was all safe on top of the hill, Joe sat down trembling like a leaf. George looked a bit shaky, and Gilbert very hot and tired.
Joe said: "In a week George and I will be hardened up so that there won't be any trembling."
Job said: "Always hard."
By noon it had grown very hot. There was scarcely a stir in the air, and the sun beat down on the sand-hills in no gentle manner. The perspiration ran down the men's faces as they carried, and the flies were beginning to come. After lunch Job set up two impromptu wigwams, stringing a tarpaulin over each, and under these shelters the men rested till 4 P.M. By camping time the outfit had been moved up over the portage about a mile, and I had learned something more about what packing means.
All day it had been slow, hot work, and the men were tired. I thought I would take a hand in making camp and getting supper. We had a beautiful camping-place, its only drawback being the distance from the water supply, for we were now 200 feet above the river, and some distance back from it. The ground was dry and moss covered, and the scattered spruce supplied the carpets for the tents which were soon ready for the night.
There were bannocks to be made again, and I helped to cook them. It was no small surprise to find how much art there is in doing it. At first I thought I could teach the men a lot of things about cooking bannocks, but it was not long before I began to suspect that I had something to learn. They were made simply with the flour, salt, baking-powder and water, but without any shortening. This made them tough, but they carried better so. As George said: "You can throw them round, or sit on them, or jump on them, and they are just as good after you have done it as before."
In cooking them a piece of the dough is taken and worked into a round lump, which is pressed flat into a frying-pan. It is then placed before the fire till the upper side of the bannock is slightly browned, when it is turned and replaced till the other side is browned. As soon as the bannock is stiff enough to stand on its edge it is taken out of the pan to make room for more, and placed before a rock near the fire, or on a pair of forked sticks until it has had time, as nearly as can be calculated, to cook halfway through. Then it is turned again and allowed to cook from the other side. In this process the possibilities in the way of burning hands and face, and of dropping the bannocks into the fire and ashes are great. I seemed to take advantage of them all, but if my efforts were not much help they certainly furnished amusement for the men. The task is a long one too, and it was nine o'clock when supper was ready.
Job, who had been absent for some time, returned now with a report that three-quarters of a mile further on we could again take the river. Despite the day's work he looked all alive with interest and energy. He loved to pole up a rapid or hunt out a trail just as an artist loves to paint.
Supper over, we sat at the camp fire for a little while. The sunset light still tinged the sky back of Mount Sawyer, and from its foot came up the roar of the rapid. Now and again a bird's evening song came down to us from the woods on the hill above, and in the tent Joe was playing softly on the mouth organ, "Annie Laurie" and "Comin' through the Rye." After I had gone to my tent the men sang, very softly, an Indian "Paddling Song."
A stream of bright sunlight on the roof of my tent roused me on Saturday morning, and mingling with the sound of the river came again that of the "Paddling Song." At breakfast all were exclaiming over the wonderful weather, George insisting that he did not believe this could be Labrador at all.