72 HUNTING CAMPS. 



that Sam had enjoyed his never-to-be-forgotten hunt 

 some seven years before our visit, when one day he saw 

 a large brownish creature lumbering through the woods, 

 cut it off behind a clump of spruces and killed it with a 

 ball from his rifle. It was not until he was bending 

 over his quarry that he discovered that he had slain a 

 polar bear. Its nose and jowl were full of porcupine 

 quills, and the fact that it had been rolling in the mud 

 of the river-bank, probably in its efforts to get rid of 

 the quills, had turned it into a likeness of a gigantic 

 Barren ground bear. The deaths of this animal and of 

 seven walrus that were slain by the Eskimo at Hopedale 

 form the two red-letter events of which every visitor to 

 that region is sure to hear. But we, alas ! had no good 

 fortune ; our single success being scored at the expense 

 of a grey seal that was fishing at the mouth of the 

 river. For the rest, we only succeeded in keeping our- 

 selves and the Broomfield family supplied with feathered 

 game. 



At length I was beginning to grow anxious about 

 catching my steamer, as the winter was rapidly 

 closing in, when at last Sam put in a welcome 

 appearance with my boat. The morning following, he 

 and his son, Wells and myself, with a step-son of Old 

 Man Lane named Sandy Gear, started on our sixty 

 miles voyage to the south. This distance we expected 

 to be able to make by the afternoon of the next day, 

 but, owing to contrary winds, evening found us still 

 within the broad-spread arms of Jack Lane's Bay, and 

 in the morning, after a night ashore round an open fire, 

 the wind hardened to a gale, which blew almost in our 

 faces and prevented our making much progress. As 

 such storms often hold back the traveller in Labrador a 



