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68 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



you mean to camp, building your camp (if it is to be used for 

 any time) and at the end of your trip hauling out your cariboo 

 if you have any, to the nearest lumber road, is very hard work 

 indeed. 



Peter was a splendid Indian, a first rate hunter, and very 

 devoted to me. But I nearly got into sad trouble the day I first 

 won his affections. It was at the same time so comical that I 

 think I must relate the circumstance to you. 



It was my first winter hunt alone with Peter. We sleighed 

 out, our empty taboggans hitched on behind the sleigh, to the last 

 settler's ; and slept the night side by side, wrapped comfortably 

 in our buffalo robes, on the floor of the one room of the small 

 shanty with a big fire at our feet. 



Early next morning we started to do our 15 to 20 miles 

 " haul " to where we meant to camp. It was unusually hard work, 

 and a warmer day than usual at that season, and by mid day we 

 were both "pumped." To relieve Peter who had been "break- 

 ing path" all the way, I suggested that we should exchange 

 taboggans, and that he should take my smaller and lighter 

 taboggan and load. He did this with alacrity, but with the lighter 

 load he soon shot ahead of me and left me ; and at last getting 

 completely done with my heavy load, I left the taboggan and 

 doubled after him, and in three or four miles caught him up ; I was 

 in no amiable mood, and pitched into him, pretty roughly I am 

 afraid, for "leaving me alone in the woods." We had sat down 

 in the meantime to " blow," and he like me also lost his temper 

 and rounded on me. " Call that leaving you," he said, " I'll show 

 you what leaving you means. What will you do now if I go off 

 through the wood there and leave you altogether ? " 



Were such a thing to happen I knew I was " done for." 



So I quietly dropped my rifle across my knees, click went 

 the lock to full cock, and I said " I will tell you what I should do — 

 as you reach that tree," and I pointed to one some SO yards off, 

 " I should fire at you, I will not be left alone." 



Dead silence, and no one moved, for hours. Peter gravely 

 pulled out his pipe and began to smoke. I pulled out mine and 

 did ditto. He re-filled and lit up again, I did the same. For 

 the life of me I dare not say another word, for if I did I knew I 

 should lose all future influence over him, but it was a miserable 

 hour or more to me, for I was thinking what a "corner" I had 

 got into. I must keep my word, or I was done for as to getting 

 on with him. If he did go, and I had to keep it, what then 1 

 Of course I meant to wing him only, but even so, what a risk ! 



At last I saw him glance quickly up at me from the corner 

 of his eye, and I began to feel that the day was my own, but I 

 did not move a muscle. Another glance up, and then a grunt, 



