OUR RETURN TO THE HOME CAMP 97 



On reaching the camp at night we informed the un- 

 successful hunter of what we had seen on the after- 

 noon's jaunt, advising him to try his luck there during 

 the remaining two days of his stay ; but all his am- 

 bition for hunting was gone, and we talked to deaf 

 ears. 



When night came I gathered a few green boughs 

 and, laying them on the jfloor of the camp for a bed, 

 I got into my sleeping bag and slept until daylight. 



We had our last hunt before starting back during 

 this forenoon, which was also without result, although 

 we covered quite a distance until dinner time arrived. 



After dinner Henry, the cook, and the writer got 

 into our canoe at two-thirty, and with the wind blowing 

 a light gale, which made our deeply laden canoe come 

 perilously close to shipping water enough to sink her, 

 we crossed the big lake of the Southwest Miramichi in 

 an hour and ten minutes. 



On the farther shore I built a camp-fire, while Henry 

 went back with some potatoes to the home camp. The 

 team which was to take our stuff out the next morning 

 soon arrived, and we had our supper in the same camp 

 where we had found the Scotch colonel with " that 

 damned cook " on our arrival the Wednesday previous. 



I had now been " in " altogether but eight days, and 

 when I lay down on the ground to sleep that cold, cold 

 night of the 8th of October, when the ice formed 

 along the edges of the lake before morning, I realized 



