CHAPTER X 



IN THE SHEEP COUNTRY 



On August 15 we bade farewell to all those at the cannery 

 who would be gone before we returned there in October. 

 Towing boats up a rapid river like Kussiloff, where the trees 

 and bushes overhang the banks, and numerous big rocks 

 standing out of the water have to be circumvented, is no 

 light task ; and so our natives found it, even with three of 

 them on the tow-rope and one man steering in the boat. 

 The last had by far the best of the deal, and seemed to 

 spend his time shouting to the other men, " Go ahead ! " 

 They meanwhile were often waist-deep in water, and kept 

 floundering into innumerable deeper places, where they went 

 almost out of sight. I will give them the credit of saying, 

 that during the two days spent towing up the river these 

 men worked hard and well. We kept making short cuts and 

 walking through the forest wherever the river took a bend, 

 and each day with the aid of a small .22 rifle collected enough 

 spruce-grouse to make a good stew in the evenings. Although 

 moose-tracks were numerous and fresh all along the river- 

 banks, we saw nothing of the animals. We had, however, 

 seen two young bulls early one morning before leaving 

 Kussiloff, as they walked across the open marsh only a few 

 hundred yards from the cannery. . 



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