TO THE TIMBER'S EDGE 183 



again the next morning Beniah signed me that we were 

 now off for musk-ox. Another day of travel in a fearful 

 wind and the mercury at 47 below, over rocky ridges and 

 through pine that was growing smaller and more scat- 

 tering as we advanced, and at night we camped on the 

 shore of King Lake. 



The next morning we lingered for a couple of hours 

 while the Indians cut and trimmed lodge-poles we must 

 carry with us. And as I climbed to the top of a rocky 

 ridge, and viewed the desert of treeless snow extending 

 far into the horizon before me, I knew we had come to 

 the edge of timber, and that the Barren Grounds, in 

 all their desolation, lay before me. And I thought, as I 

 stood and gazed into the cheerless waste, that if death 

 marked my venture it would not be a hard country to 

 leave. 



