On September 4th the glass had fallen badly, a gale was blowing and heavy rain clouds were coming up from the south-west. Notwithstanding the prospect of bad weather we decided to go up to Square Box Hill and have a look for the stag we had seen the previous evening. It was a five miles' walk, up hill the whole way, but the ascent was gradual. We had just reached the top of the ridge within about half-a-mile of the hill when the rain came down in sheets. Spying was impossible, so we took shelter in a droke, lit a good fire, boiled the kettle and had lunch. We waited till about two o'clock, but there was no sign of clearing, so we plodded back to camp, getting well soaked through. Just as we got to camp the rain cleared off, and after a change of clothing we started to fish about five o'clock. We picked up five nice fish, all on the minnow—one about 2 lb. Just at dusk a doe came swimming out from one of the islands as if to have a look at us. Meat was not over abundant in camp, so I gave Steve permission to shoot her with the rook rifle. Steve rather prided himself on being a good shot, but he was shooting from a wobbly canoe and missed clean with the first shot, but hit her with the second, and landing, killed her stone dead. By the time the doe was gralloched and in the canoe a heavy fog had come up and it was dark before we reached camp.
On this trip I was introduced to two great delicacies. One roast doe's head, and the other roast breast-bone of stag. John was an adept at these dishes, and anything more delicious and tender I have never tasted. The head was only skinned, put in the baker and roasted whole for about six hours, the great advantage of the baker being that the heat can be regulated by the distance it is kept from the fire.
In the evening we had a long discussion as to what we had better do. There were no stags to speak of in the country we were in. So a move was necessary, and Steve decided we would take all the outfit to the west end of Sandy Pond, there make our main camp, and with a small camp work down to Kepskaig, all through a wooded country where he maintained the stags were now to be found. So we decided to make a start the following morning.
Our camp was simply infested with grey jays, generally known as robber-birds; there were at least a dozen who made the camp their home. No sooner was a bit of meat hung up in the open than they descended on it and began picking it to pieces.
It was very interesting watching them, for they were so tame that Joe caught one with his hand. They appeared to be ravenous, and stuffed themselves with meat and then flew away, but Steve explained they only went a short distance to store the meat for the bad winter days to come, hiding it in crevices in the bark of the surrounding trees. They worked hard from morning to night and must have laid by a good store, for I left a good lump of venison hanging in the open for their special benefit, the rest of the meat being protected from the flies and the jays by my mosquito net, which I had turned into a meat safe.