276 NEWFOUNDLAND 



stitching fresh moccasins, and chattering in their melHfluous 

 dialect. Sometimes they slept an hour or two, and then rose 

 again to replenish the fires and roast bits of grouse. The 

 next day, however, heralded in a deluge, with equinoctial gales 

 which lasted all day. I went out for several miles on to a 

 high stony country, and found deer plentiful, seeing two old 

 stags and fifty-four does. We crossed the river twice, which 

 took Steve to his waist as he ferried me over, and returned 

 in the evening soaked to the skin by the drenching rain. 



The next day was fine, so we started for the north again, 

 encountering numerous rapids and small waterfalls, but in the 

 evening some welcome "steadies" appeared, and we paddled 

 up these until we reached the first of the chain of little lakes 

 known to the Indians as "Podopsk." October loth saw the 

 last of our struggles with the river, when at midday we 

 arrived at a fine lake which has no title, and which I have 

 named " Lake Prowse," after the Judge. It is a fair-sized 

 sheet of water, about two and a half miles long, in the shape 

 of an equilateral triangle. The left bank is clothed in heavy 

 woods, almost the first we had seen since leaving Long 

 Harbor, and a single large island, a mile long, exists on the 

 east side. Fortunately, there was only a gentle breeze at our 

 backs, so we made good time over the open waters, and, after 

 hauling up over heavy rapids at the north end, finished our 

 canoe journey for a time. Here Matty Burke and Johnny 

 Benoit left us for their trapping-grounds in the neighbour- 

 hood of the "Tolt" Mountain, about thirty miles to the 

 south-east. They promised to help us down the river at the 

 beginning of November. 



My plan was now to " cache " the greater part of my 

 provisions under the two canoes, and to carry as much as 

 possible away to the west over the range known to the 



