232 HUNTING CAMPS. 



to the lot of a friend who, after spending ten blank 

 days in the woods without sight of game, was driving 

 out along the road when he came suddenly within 

 shot of a band of caribou, including five stags this 

 when the rifles were put away and the cartridges 

 reposing in the packs ! One of the men, however, had 

 a '303, which he thrust into my friend's hand. The 

 cartridge misfired and jammed. Time itself cannot 

 obliterate the sear of such an episode, which, indeed, 

 has since compelled my friend to carry his rifle along 

 some hundreds of miles of toteroad and bushpath, but 

 without ever again coming face to face with such an 

 opportunity. 



One of our halts on the way we made at a small 

 wooden house raised upon piles, in the fly-blown living 

 room of which a kindly, twinkling old lady, bent nearly 

 double with age, gave us, at a small cost, one of the 

 most perfect meals I have ever tasted. The house 

 belonged to one of the small farmers, who cultivate 

 little clearings beside the forest-track. These people 

 have an excellent life ; they fulfil the dream of George 

 Borrow, who saw himself in imagination, assisted by an 

 enormous progeny, felling the trees and tilling the soil 

 in the virgin woods of America. As a rule, in the case 

 of the French-Canadian, there is no mistake about the 

 progeny. Formerly, I believe, the State bestowed a 

 bounty upon parents whose offspring exceeded the 

 round dozen, but this has been discontinued. The 

 French-Canadians are extraordinarily prolific, and in 

 this connection I can remember arriving at a house and 

 being offered, with a friend, the hospitality of the 

 family bed, which, unless some of the family accepted 

 the alternative of the stable, had already seven claimants. 



