TRACKERS OF THE NORTH. 31 



all help as guides as the observant trapper 

 makes his way through a pathless forest. 



Of course, this tax on the memory is not 

 required of trappers about a settled part of the 

 country, but I am telling of what is absolutely 

 necessary for the safety of one's life in the far- 

 away wilds of the North, where to lose one's 

 self might possibly mean death. 



I followed an Indian guide once over a trail 

 of 280 miles, whereon we snowshoed over moun- 

 tains, through dense bush, down rivers and over 

 lakes. To test my powers of a retentive mem- 

 ory, the following winter, when dispatches again 

 had to be taken to headquarters, I asked the 

 Indian to allow me to act as guide, he following. 



On that long journey of ten or twelve days, 

 always walking and continually thinking out 

 the road, I was in doubt only once. We were 

 standing on the ice; a tongue of land stood 

 out toward us ; a bay on either side. The port- 

 age leaving the lake was at the bottom of one 

 of these bays, but which? The Indian had halted 

 almost on the tails of my snowshoes, and en- 

 joyed my hesitation, but said nothing. To be 

 assured of no mistake, I had to pass over the 

 whole of last winter's trip in my mind's eye up 

 to the point on which we stood. Once the re- 

 trospect caught up with us, there was no further 

 trouble. Our route was down the left-hand bay. 



