CHAPTER XV 



OPEN-GROUND HUNTING ON THE SHOE HILL AND 

 KESOQUIT RIDGES 



The whole character of the country from Fortune Bay to 

 Mount Sylvester is different from that of any other part of 

 the island which I have seen, except the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Partridgeberry Hill, in Central Newfoundland. 

 The landscape is open, with rolling hills stretching away to 

 the distant horizon. Here and there are little rocky eminences, 

 locally designated as " knaps," from which miles of country 

 may be easily spied. Marshes are few and small, and the 

 whole ground is covered with reindeer moss, with a few 

 blueberry patches. Sometimes one sees a sprinkling of 

 scattered larches from seven to ten feet high, whilst tiny 

 spruce forests, of some dwarf variety which never exceeds 

 three and a half feet in height, cover many of the summits 

 of the ridges. At a distance these little spruce woods look 

 like grass or moss, and they are of such small stature that 

 a passage between them looks easy ; but if you are so un- 

 fortunate as to find your way into their midst, nothing remains 

 but retreat, or a short cut to the nearest hard ground, for the 

 deceptive bush is a mass of interlaced boughs of great strength, 

 which makes progression extremely arduous, and at times 

 impossible. No Indian walks through "tufts," as these dwarf 

 forests are called, unless he is forced to do so, and the 

 employment of Steve, who knows every deer and rabbit 

 path in Shoe Hill and Kesoquit, was the means of avoiding 



much arduous labour. 



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