360 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
tained. The canoe-track passes to the eastward 
of this rock, but we kept to the westward, 
as being the more direct course. From the time 
we quitted the banks of Winter River we saw 
only a few detached clumps of trees ; but after 
we passed Dog-rib Rock even these disappeared, 
and we travelled through a naked country. In 
the course of the afternoon Keskarrah killed a 
rein-deer, and loaded himself with its head and 
skin, and our men also carried off a few pounds 
of its flesh for supper ; but their loads were alto- 
gether too great to permit them to take much addi- 
tional weight. Keskarrah offered to us as a great 
ireat the raw marrow from the hind legs of the 
animal, of which all the party ate except myself, 
and thought it very good. I was also of the same 
opinion, when I subsequently conquered my then 
too fastidious taste. We halted for the night on the 
borders of a small lake, which washed the base of 
a ridge of sand-hills, about three hundred feet high, 
having walked in direct distance sixteen miles. 
There were four ancient pine-trees here which 
did not exceed six or seven feet in height, but 
whose branches spread themselves out for several 
yards, and we gladly cropped a few twigs to make 
a bed and to protect us from the frozen ground, 
still white from a fall of snow which took place 
_in the afternoon. We were about to cut down 
