72 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



and vent their frenzied disappointment in furious fighting. 

 Indian dogs spend most of their time fighting ; when it is 

 not one another, it is against death by starvation. 



If I failed of increasing our supplies at this settlement, 

 I did get a map, which at least aimed to show me the way 

 to plenty. It was a puzzling creation, that map, which 

 one of the Indians drew in my note-book to give us some 

 idea of the direction of the trail across the six lakes that 

 lay between us and the next Indian camp on White Fish 

 Lake. Once at White Fish Lake, and we had but fifteen 

 miles to John MacDonald's, on Big Jack Fish Lake, the 

 McMurray fishery, and home of one of the best-known 

 voyagcnrs in the country. But Big Jack Fish Lake was 

 two days' travel away, and meanwhile my ankle made life 

 intolerable, and the map proved more maddening than the 

 fifteen puzzle. We made only seven miles the afternoon 

 of the day I sprained my ankle ; we had covered twenty 

 up to noon ; but after my rest I could barely move along, 

 and besides we were continually falling foul of trails, 

 which appeared coming from everywhere and went no- 

 where. All this and the following day we travelled over 

 muskeg, particularly severe on me now, with an ankle so 

 tender, and really only one foot with which to feel the 

 road. But, after all, the muskeg was kinder to us than the 

 lakes, for when we reached these we invariably lost the 

 trail, to find and as speedily lose it again, while it was ab- 

 solutely impossible to judge from its direction where it 

 eventually left the lake. Indians never by any chance 

 travel straight. Thoughout the (about) 900 miles of trail 

 I followed from Edmonton to Fort Resolution, on Great 

 Slave Lake, there is but the single exception of the Slave 

 Lake portage ; for the rest, it looks as though the original 

 traveller had sat up all night at Edmonton with a " sick 

 friend " and a barrel, and then started to walk home. At 



