Monday morning, October 18th, we had breakfast by starlight. Venus and Jupiter were two particularly bright morning stars. Billy looked long at the waning planets and remarked, in an awe-struck tone, "My, but they must be high up!"
A Beaver Dam.
That day we reached Ross Lake, where there is a lumberman's supply depot for operations over on the main Ottawa, in the direction of Lake Expanse. We had no occasion to stop there, and all the afternoon followed the directions we had received from Mr. Christopherson, pursuing the Hudson's Bay Company trail through some small beaver ponds, till we reached Trout Lake, a beautiful sheet of water about fifteen miles long, where we expected to find an Indian to guide us to the Grand Lake Victoria.
We found the summer camp all right, where the Indians had a potato-patch, which they had not dug, so Joe said they had not left for the winter; but not a smoke or sign of life could we find. We explored the lake, finding abundant moose signs and trolled for salmon trout, which at this time were up near the surface. One we caught was the largest I ever saw. We had no means of determining its weight, but when placed in the centre of the canoe, crosswise, on the bottom, its nose protruded over one gunwale and its tail above the other.
On the morning of our third day on the lake we heard a dog bark, and found the Indians encamped on a secluded island. The wretches had seen us the first day, but, fearing we were game wardens or other evil-disposed persons, had kept out of our way. Joe said the Indians up there had a reputation for hiding from passers-by. After we had met them and given evidence of good intentions, they were sociable enough. While we were inviting the Indians to pass judgment on the contents of a certain jug, an extremely large domestic cat belonging to them ate much of the moose meat in our canoe. Nearly every Indian camp in these woods has at least one cat, to keep the moose-birds and wood-mice in subjugation, and the cats, being hard to get, are highly prized.
On Lake Kakebonga.