BACK TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE 287 



and being as hourly disappointed. As we were travelling 1 

 through a kind of valley my eye caught sight of a birch- 

 tree just to the side of my sledge. How well I remember 

 that birch-tree ! And how delighted I was, for I knew by 

 that sign the timber-line was very close. 



Late in the afternoon, about four o'clock, it stopped 

 snowing and the atmosphere cleared, and an hour later 

 from the top of a ridge we saw a patch of pine. Another 

 hour and we had passed this patch, and on a ridge south 

 of it saw yet another. I remember with what trepidation 

 I hurried by that patch and up to the ridge beyond, to 

 see if indeed there were still another sign of life, or wheth- 

 er it was all a fancy, and I should look out again upon the 

 old familiar stretch of unbroken, glistening white. It was 

 a sort of daylight nightmare. But the patches were real- 

 ities, for at six o'clock we stopped on a high ridge, and be- 

 fore us was the edge of timber. It makes me tingle even 

 now to remember my sensation at first sight of pine ! 

 What a relief to see nothing but the blackness of the tim- 

 ber as far ahead as we could look ! How grateful we were ! 

 From now on we went through the stragglers of the 

 timber's edge, and just before dark came upon Beniah's 

 tracks going south. 



That night we camped in the timber's edge and dis- 

 carded our lodge. It was blessed to realize, as I sat by 

 the huge fire, that at least I had left behind me the cursed 

 Barren Grounds, with its cold and wind and desolation. 



Next morning it was the 2Oth day of April, and the 

 sun arose at 4.30 and we were travelling at five o'clock. 

 An hour later we caught up with Beniah and the other 

 Indian, who had camped the night before about five miles 

 from us. Both showed the effects of their dreadful expe- 

 rience, but when I shook hands with Beniah the starva- 

 tion, the cold, and the misery he had endured found ex- 



