222 On the trail of vanishing birds 



Although I had only seen the region briefly from a Beaver, flying 

 high at 120 miles per hour, it hadn't looked right when we came 

 in to the landing place. However, this was evidently it, and when 

 the pilot said he wanted to get moving because of a squall that 

 appeared to be making up in the northwest, we said, "Sure, get 

 going, we're on our own now!" Which we certainly were, more so 

 than we had any idea at the moment. The helicopter disappeared 

 in an instant, and we toted the remainder of our supplies up on 

 the ridge, fighting off clouds of mosquitoes at every step. The river 

 seemed wider and deeper and swifter than we had thought it 

 would be near the source, but since no one before us had seen it 

 from the ground in summer we shrugged it off as another un- 

 looked-for development. We then made camp, and after a quick 

 supper turned in with the hum of mosquitoes and the sad notes 

 of the olive-backs in our ears. It was very cold that night, and 

 sadder than even the olive-backs knew! 



A preliminary investigation next morning revealed a major 

 difficulty. The river was as badly choked with log jams as at its 

 mouth. In a short walk downstream, toward the pond area in 

 which we thought the cranes would be, we counted six obstruc- 

 tions, every one of them a beauty. It was clear that our canoe 

 would be useless. To reach the cranes we would have to walk 

 across-country. "Oh well," we comforted ourselves, "it's only two 

 miles or so airline from here to the closest nesting site. We can 

 probably do it in an hour." So after lunch we started walking. A 

 buffalo trail through swamp and windfall and burn led more or 

 less northward, the direction we figured we must go. In the soft 

 mud were many bear tracks, fresh prints of all sizes, including 

 those of cubs. We trudged on, blazing a return trail. The clouds of 



what Seton had referred to as those little nearly smothered 



us. After an hour of hard walking we reached no ponds, but seemed 

 to be plunging deeper and deeper into the forest. Finally we turned 

 back. 



Another attempt was made next day on a slightly different 

 course, but the results were the same. It wasn't until Wednesday, 

 June 8, that we had done enough exploring to realize that we had 



