HUNTING IN THE SELKIRKS. 153 



salt, tea, and matches. I also took a jacket, 

 a spare pair of socks, some handkerchiefs, 

 and my washing kit. Fifty cartridges in my 

 belt completed my outfit. 



We walked in single file, as is necessary in 

 thick woods. The white hunter led and I 

 followed, each with rifle on shoulder and pack 

 on back. Ammal, the Indian, pigeon-toed 

 along behind, carrying his pack, not as we did 

 ours, but by help of a forehead-band, which he 

 sometimes shifted across his breast. The 

 travelling through the tangled, brush-choked 

 forest, and along the boulder-strewn and precip- 

 itous mountain sides, was inconceivably rough 

 and difficult. In places we followed the valley, 

 and when this became impossible we struck 

 across the spurs. Every step was severe toil. 

 Now we walked through deep moss and rot- 

 ting mould, every few feet clambering over 

 huge trunks ; again we pushed through a stiff 

 jungle of bushes and tall, prickly plants 

 called " devil's clubs,' 7 which stung our 

 hands and faces. Up the almost perpendicu- 

 lar hill-sides we in many places went practi- 

 cally on all fours, forcing our way over the 

 rocks and through the dense thickets of laurels 

 or young spruce. Where there were windfalls 

 or great stretches of burnt forest, black and 

 barren wastes, we balanced and leaped from 

 log to log, sometimes twenty or thirty feet 

 above the ground ; and when such a stretch 

 was on a steep hill-side, and especially if the 

 logs were enveloped in a thick second growth 

 of small evergreens, the footing was very in- 

 secure, and the danger from a fall consider- 

 able. Our packs added greatly to our labor, 



