120 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



water, I saw coming towards me from on the other side — a fox ! 

 The fellow was of the variety called " Cross Fox," lean and hungry- 

 looking. He trotted leisurely on, as one sees a dog trotting along a 

 pathway, — occasionally pausing to sniff at a dead craw-fish. I did 

 not attempt to hide myself, but stood perfectly still. He came care- 

 lessly on, and cleared the tree with the lightest and gracefullest of 

 leaps, but his black paws hardly touched the sand before he had 

 whisked like lightning from his course, and disappeared in the wood. 



As the island is not a mile long and only a few hundred yards 

 across, it was a matter of wonderment how he got here, or what he 

 could find here to live upon. The men said he had most likely come 

 across on the ice from the main land (a distance of about four miles) 

 in the winter, and had not dared to swim back again. We found 

 marks of digging in various parts of the island, and conjectured he 

 had been reduced to a partly vegetable diet. If he could have 

 trotted undisturbed a few rods further, he would have found what I 

 picked up in his stead, the dead body of a little warbler that had 

 evidently been beaten down and drowned in the storm the day 

 before, and lay on its back on the sand at the water's edge, the wings 

 a little open, quite fresh, and the plumage hardly ruffled. 



At dusk, two figures appeared on the beach of an island about 

 half a mile ofi". Our men said they were "Frangais," that is, not 

 Indians,* but more could not be made out. They proved afterwards 

 to have been some of our friends of the bateau, but they had 

 encamped on the opposite side of the island, and did not see us. It 

 rained at intervals, and blew very hard in the night, the wind shift- 

 ing from north-west to north-east. We had fears for our tent, but for- 

 tified ourselves by felling a few trees to windward. 



Aug. Ibth. — At five o'clock this morning it still blew hard, 

 and although the wind was more off shore, and the waves accordingly 

 not so high, yet the rollers were plunging along the beach with a vio- 

 lence that rendered embarkation somewhat hazardous. But we were 

 all anxious to be off. To-day was the day fixed for reaching the 



* These half-breed voyageurs are true creatures of tradition, and still divide the 

 human race into but two classes, "Francais" and " Saxivages." Before I understood 

 this, one morning we found on a beach where we landed, tracks of men who, they said, 

 were " Fran9ais." When I asked them how they knew this, they pointed to the marks 

 of boot-heels in the sand. 



