FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE 137 



What kind of a time Munn had, and, incidentally, what 

 hunting means in this country, may be learned from his 

 letter, which I received at Slave Lake, on my return from 

 the Barren Grounds : 



" FORT SMITH, March 4th, 1895. 



" DEAR WHITNEY, I am in a position to state positively that 

 not only are the days now long, but the nights are longer. 



" Briefly, the fourth day out on the buffalo-hunt we got a couple 

 of moose, and, of course, had to camp there the fifth day, owing to 

 overeating of fresh meat. The next day we travelled, the next 

 looked for tracks of our quarry, and found a sign twelve hours old 

 of a band of about forty, and I congratulated myself on ab- 

 staining from shooting at a moose that I got within 150 yards of, 

 as we thought the buffalo were close. We started at 6.30 the 

 following day, made a camp for the dogs, and travelled down the 

 track with hardly a spell till 6 P.M. We then camped on the 

 tracks with nothing to eat and no axe or blanket, and next morn- 

 ing I and one of the men went on, the other weakening and re- 

 turning to camp; five hours' hard travelling put us no nearer, and 

 the man being sure they were heading for a country two days off, I 

 very reluctantly gave up the chase and returned. Of course we 

 couldn't make camp that night, though we made a bold push for 

 it, and had to lay out for the second time with no blanket, nothing 

 to eat, and wet to the skin. When it began to blow cold towards 

 midnight and snow hard, I assure you it was by no means amusing; 

 my meal in forty-eight hours consisted of a half-raw partridge, and 

 for drink we melted snow into our gun covers I have dined more 

 luxuriously. What started the buffalo travelling thus, God in his 

 wisdom only knows, but they were, no doubt, heading for some 

 objective point, as they journeyed through the densest " cypre " 

 with absolute directness, and the foregoer of the herd must have 

 been a veritable Moses leading his followers to a promised land 

 of I suppose muskeg grass. 



" You will thus see that my statement in the commencement of 

 this letter is a fact, and both the days and nights (on an empty 

 stomach) are long, and we travelled far. 



" I am glad to hear of deer on the islands, as you may avoid some 

 of the misery of starvation on your musk-ox hunt. I leave here 



