BLIND LEADING THE BLIND 73 



best its windings are hard to follow, but when one may 

 advance only by feeling, its difficulties become tenfold, 

 and yet it is remarkable how skilled one becomes in this 

 method of procedure. I grew sufficiently expert after a 

 time, and when there was good bottom to the trail, to fol- 

 low it running, about a five-mile- per-hour gait, though 

 there was literally no indication on the snow's surface of 

 a trail beneath. 



Added to the misery of bodily ailment, the map dis- 

 tracted me by its deceptions. The lengths of lines 

 drawn by the Indian to represent the portages between 

 the lakes gave no indication of the comparative distances. 

 The first " line " was short, and we covered it in a couple 

 of hours ; the next one was about the same length, but 

 we were half a day crossing the country between the two 

 lakes it joined ; the third line was fully four times as long 

 as the longer of the other two, yet we were only half an 

 hour going from end to end of it. 



And every little while, when a lost or blind trail dis- 

 mayed us, and we cast about to find our true course, we 

 looked at each other, John and I, and pitied one another 

 for living. We could not exchange ideas ; we could not 

 have the poor comfort of debating the situation ; we 

 could only make a few imperfect signs, which expressed 

 little to the point, and seemed frivolous in the face of a 

 situation so desperate. Once our leading dog, who is al- 

 ways called a foregoer, found the trail on the lake, and 

 showed remarkable sagacity, which, by-the-way, we trusted 

 to our sorrow later. This time, however, he came to our 

 rescue when we were utterly lost ; he ceased following 

 the imaginary trail I was hobbling along, and, after a few 

 casts, settled to a steady gait in another direction. John 

 also thought he had a trail, which he endeavored to per- 

 suade the dogs into following, but the foregoer held his 



