192 SPORT IN NEWFOUNDLAND 



quietly into the camp with his pack and simply 

 remarked : " Don't think I made bad time." 

 I should think not. He had covered nineteen 

 miles, eleven of them carrying a pack, in four 

 and a half hours — a fine performance. He well 

 deserved the tot of rum which I served out to 

 him. I heard afterwards that in June he had 

 left Ryan's house at 4 a.m. with a light pack 

 and arrived at Conne River, his home, a dis- 

 tance of forty-eight miles, at 8 o'clock the 

 same evening. 



I had gathered from Millais' book that Steve 

 was rather addicted to rum, which was con- 

 firmed by a letter from him to Mr. Blair, saying, 

 " Don't forget some rum, for you know how 

 fond I am of it." I rather chaffed him about 

 this letter and he assured me that it was a 

 mistake — he could not write himself and some 

 girl in his settlement had written for him and 

 put the passage in without his knowledge. I 

 can only say that I had no difficulty with Steve 

 or any of the others over the question of liquor. 

 I kept the whisky and rum locked up in a box, 

 but I think I might have left it open. I had 

 only six bottles of whisky and three of rum, 

 and on opening the box one of the latter was 

 found broken. I spread this amount over our 

 entire trip till I got back to St. John's. John 

 told me he did not care for rum. Joe acknow- 



