244 HUNTING CAMPS. 



the road, and it was close upon three o'clock before I 

 overcame his reluctance. 



Leaving my French-Canadians behind at the camp, 

 Ed and I set out in the buck-board, and as, with 

 the exception of the time we had spent by the fire 

 during the night, we had been continuously on our 

 feet for twenty-eight hours, we were extremely glad of 

 the lift. Our comfort was, alas ! of very short dura- 

 tion, for we had not made more than four miles when 

 one of the off-side wheels became jammed among the 

 rocks and broke to pieces, and had to be replaced by a 

 green sapling. While the repairs were being executed, 

 Ed and I spied four ruffed grouse, three of which 

 we shot. 



When we set out again with the crippled buck-board 

 we found ourselves still twenty-one miles from the 

 nearest house, to be reached in the dark over an 

 exceedingly rough forest-road, continually cut by water- 

 courses, over which pine-log bridges had been thrown 

 some fifteen years previously, but most of these had 

 been destroyed by time and weather to the extent of 

 becoming an obstruction rather than a help. Our food, 

 too, had given out, and had it not been for a meal 

 from a barrel of pickled pork which we found in a 

 disused logging hut, we could hardly have succeeded 

 in accomplishing the distance in time. It was nearly 

 2 a.m. when at length the seemingly endless road 

 wound into a clearing, from which the sound of cattle 

 feeding was one of the most welcome we had ever 

 heard. 



Refreshed by food we pushed forward, leaving the 

 buck-board to follow, and by four o'clock the same after- 

 noon I was aboard my steamer. As I bade Edward 



