Sport in Vancouver and Newfoundland

by Sir John Godfrey Rogers

Night fell and there was no sign of Smith or Thomson. Fortunately the weather had been quite perfect and a bivouac in the woods would be no great hardship.

"Nigger" was a source of continual amusement to me that day. He was a dog of great character and had become much attached to me. He liked the camp fire and never was so happy as when sitting on his haunches as close as he could get to it and blinking with intense joy. His master, I fear, often drove him away, but he always crept back a few minutes after. He loved, too, to crawl under the fly of my tent and curl up for the night at the foot of my blanket.

I spent a portion of the day cleaning and skinning the paws of the cougar, and as I finished each paw, threw it away some distance from the camp. "Nigger" carefully watched my proceedings, and when he thought I was not looking, slunk away and had soon retrieved each paw, and carefully buried it for future use. Poor beast! I expect he had experienced many a hungry day and instinct had taught him to make provision for the future.

September 4th. Smith and Thomson had not returned, which meant another wasted day. Here we were the sixth day out from the lake, but we had only made two marches and were not yet in our hunting ground. Eustace Smith had said it was only a two or three days' march at the outside—but he probably travelled alone, very light, and knew his way. The two men turned up about 3 p.m., pretty well tired out, as they had been walking all the day before and from 6 o'clock in the morning. They reported the country ahead very bad going, but they had found a river which must have had its source in the Keogh Lake; the lake itself they had not reached. I had caught about a dozen salmon parr, so had a poor fry as an addition to the never varying menu of bacon and beans.

September 5th. We did not yet get away till 9.30, as the men were tired after their two days' tramp. We followed the bed of the Kitsewa River, crossing and recrossing the stream several times, which was very tiring. Fortunately the water was only above our knees, but a slip with his pack gave Lansdown a real ducking. Though the going was bad over rough boulders, still it was a relief after the struggle through the undergrowth of the forest. The packs were heavy, as we were now packing everything, so our progress was somewhat slow. We had cachéd some provisions in the trapper's hut and had got through six days' supplies, still the packs were as heavy as the men could well manage and a rest every fifteen minutes was necessary.

Leaving the river after about two miles, we again struck some bad country, and at 4 p.m. arrived at the stream supposed to flow out of Lake Keogh. The men were pretty well done from the extra heavy packs, so a halt was decided on and we pitched camp as best as could on the side of a precipitous hill. My knee was very painful; marching was anything but a pleasure and I was glad of an early rest.

Smith went ahead and came back reporting the lake only half-a-mile away, so it was a pity we had not gone on a little further. He had also seen the track of a big bull wapiti and a fresh bear track, which news cheered us all up.

September 6th. Starting early we were soon on the shore of the lake—a lovely sheet of water about two miles long, surrounded by steep forest-clad hills a few hundred feet high. The growth round the shore was so thick, and the rocks in parts so precipitous, we decided it would save time to build a raft to get to the end of the lake. We found some logs with which Eustace Smith had made a raft and soon put them together, and had a rough raft on which we paddled slowly to the north end of the lake.

We pitched camp on the first decent camping ground we had found. The men were in shelter under an enormous cedar-tree, of great age and quite hollow in the middle. My tent was pitched on an open bit of ground running out to the lake, over which I had a beautiful view.

Misfortune was still to pursue us—Smith had had a bad fall two days before, but did not attach much importance to it. He now felt very ill and complained of great pain and tenderness in his side. On examining him, it appeared to me that one of his ribs was cracked if not broken. He was not a very strong man physically, though as hard as nails. All we could do was to foment his side with one of our flannel shirts and let him lie in his blankets near the fire, which had been lit at the base of the cedar-tree.