56 IN THE FOREST. 



Sometimes the high banks gave place to the level 

 plain, and from the soft clay verge came the smell of 

 tar, as if the soil were impregnated with some bitumi- 

 nous substance. 



On the fourth day after leaving the fort the hunters 

 determined to camp for a few days by the river. 

 Moose were reported to be tolerably numerous in this 

 quarter, and the woodland cariboo were said to exist 

 in large bands. A hut was speedily constructed of 

 fir boughs, and the baggage safely stowed within. The 

 canoe was placed, bottom up, by the edge of the stream ; 

 and the seams, which had begun to leak a little, were 

 well calked with the resin of the epinette, or spruce 

 tree. 



Early on the following day Jake and Pierre shoul- 

 dered their rifles and entered the woods, leaving Gaul- 

 tier in charge of the camp. The two hunters, however, 

 did not mean to hunt in company. By separating 

 they would cover much more ground, and thus have a 

 better chance of meeting with game. Jake took the 

 forest lying down stream from the camp, while Pierre 

 took that above. We will accompany the latter. 



For some time the young trapper walked swiftly for- 

 ward, threading his way among the columnar trunks 

 of white spruce, and creeping through the denser 

 underbrush of young fir woods which had sprung 

 up where the older growth had been cleared out by 

 a forest fire or a hurricane. 



At these places the ground was so encumbered by 



