122 EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



three days of nagging, culminating in that defiant act, finally 

 overcame my power of self-restraint and I turned loose my wrath 

 upon Mr. Cohoyla with a vehemence which seemed to have a 

 salutary effect. I believe that I grew rather eloquent in the 

 jargon of Dog Rib and Red River French which I employed, 

 pieced out with gestures and emphatic, though to them unin- 

 telligible, English. 



On the thirtieth day of April, I started for Rae accompanied 

 by three Indians with two empty sleds, on which they refused 

 to haul any of my load, though I offered to pay them well; 

 they were still sulky about the tea. Johnnie came to me be- 

 fore I started with a long list of the goods from the store that 

 he wished as a reward for his fidelity! Jimmie invited me to a 

 dinner of tongues and pemmican and seemed anxious to atone 

 for the insolence of the others. I could understand him much 

 better when conversing, with the few words of his language 

 which I had acquired, assisted by gestures, than I could Johnnie 

 with the aid of his French. 



We followed the course of the Jackfish River toward the 

 southwest, crossing short portages from lake to lake. The 

 descent at the portages was abrupt and of considerable extent; 

 we must have been many hundred feet above the Great Slave 

 Lake when we started. The abundance of stumps at the camp- 

 ing places showed that we were following one of the great 

 highways, which is used in both summer and winter in traveling 

 to and from the Barren Ground. 



I had nothing but dried meat to eat or to feed my dogs. I 

 was truly ashamed to offer that leathery " scrap " to my team 

 which was straining to the utmost limit of its strength. Though 

 they could gulp down a three-pound frozen fish in a few seconds, 

 my dogs could scarcely eat the dried meat which I cut in small 

 pieces for them. 



On the fourth day it became much warmer and the crust 

 frequently gave way beneath the dogs, the sled, and my own 

 snow-shoes. The sled sometimes rolled over in the soft snow 

 a dozen times in traveling a hundred yards. Strange to say, 

 the mal de racquette, which had made me miserable for the pre- 

 ceding week, left me that morning or I should not have been 

 able to travel all. The Indians urged me to employ their 

 remedy for this painful malady, which I did to please them. 



