110 THE BARREN-GROUND CARIBOU 



Animal life seemed dead ; not even a rabbit 

 moved, and I fear it must have been that mini- 

 mum year of growth, that periodic time when the 

 rabbit plague nearly exterminates the species 

 in a region. 



Day after day I waited — and watched. . . . 

 Everything in the land had at first been beautiful, 

 in my eyes— but, God ! how the awful silence of 

 its vast space grips you. Even now I felt it, 

 even before the great covering of snow had 

 muffled every corner of the earth, and land and 

 water came to be bound in iron ice-grip. 



At Fort Du Brochet I had been advised that I 

 had not much time to spare before freeze-up set 

 in, and that I would be well advised to return 

 speedily. Later this turned out to be, for this 

 particular year, a deceptive estimate ; but, at 

 the time, my waiting at the head of the Cochrane 

 River seemed precarious if I was to get out to 

 the post before ice formed on the lake, beach 

 the canoe, and outfit for further travel by dog- 

 sled. Therefore, after two weeks of unrewarded 

 watching for Caribou, I gave up, and turned 

 the canoe-bow into the south for the first time 

 for many months. 



It was something over a hundred miles back 

 down the Cochrane River to Du Brochet Post. 

 The return journey began favourably, for the wind 

 was behind, and wind and current sped the canoe 

 merrily on its way ; but on the following day, 

 and thereafter, the weather broke down badly 

 and rains and heavy head-winds delayed travel- 

 ling. Indeed in mid-afternoon on one occasion 

 the storm grew so fierce that I gave up struggling 



