RETURNING TO THE "LAST WOOD" 273 



nately, the plate showing the three cows was a failure, and 

 the others are so weak as to be almost impossible of repro- 

 duction. A yearling and one two-year-old bull were the 

 only males in the entire herd. 



I find in my note-book that I neglected to record how 

 many were killed out of that herd, and I do not remember 

 the exact number, but it was about twelve. We had now 

 forty musk-ox robes, and as this is considered an excep- 

 tionally good hunt, and we had all that our dogs could 

 drag, Beniah signed to me that we should now make a 

 straight shoot for the " last wood." The sledges were 

 brought up to the scene, and we began skinning the musk 

 cattle, cutting off meat for dog-feed, and laying in a sup- 

 ply of the fat and intestines for our own consumption. 



From these preparations I assumed we were likely to 

 see no more musk-oxen, and that we had slight chance of 

 running across caribou ; and Beniah, in fact, gave me to 

 understand that the supply we took here must last until 

 we reached Great Slave Lake, helped out by the balls of 

 pemmican and the caribou cow we had cached at the 

 " last wood." 



That night two of our party were missing, and repeated 

 firing of guns aroused no response. It was well on towards 

 noon the next day before they turned up, so much the 

 worse for their experience that I gave them what remained 

 of my brandy. 



Late in the afternoon of the day after the musk-ox 

 killing we crossed snow-shoe and sledge tracks coming out 

 of the southwest. I cannot describe what a curious sensa- 

 tion the sight of those tracks gave me. It must have been 

 just such a sensation as stirred Robinson Crusoe when he 

 saw the solitary footprint in the sand. Wandering over 

 the Barrens for so many days without the sight of a 

 human face outside of your own party, you grow to a 

 18 



