74 HUNTING CAMPS. 



mails, and incidentally my boat, from Fanny's Harbour. 

 We, while awaiting his return, thoroughly explored the 

 inlet. It was at the north-western end of this creek that 

 Sam had enjoyed his never-to-be-forgotten hunt some seven 

 years before our visit, when one day he saw a large brown- 

 ish creature lumbering through the woods, cut it off be- 

 hind a clump of spruces and killed it with a ball from his 

 rifle. It was not until he was bending over his quarry 

 that he discovered that he had slain a polar bear. Its 

 nose and jowl were full of porcupine quills, and the fact 

 that it had been rolling in the mud of the river-bank, prob- 

 ably in its efforts to get rid of the quills, had turned it into 

 a likeness of a gigantic Barren ground bear. The deaths 

 of this animal and of seven walrus that were slain by 

 the Eskimo at Hopedale form the two red-letter events of 

 which every visitor to that region is sure to hear. But 

 we, alas ! had no good fortune ; our single success being 

 scored at the expense of a grey seal that was fishing at 

 the mouth of the river. For the rest, we only succeeded 

 in keeping ourselves and the Broomfield family supplied 

 with feathered game. 



At length I was beginning to grow anxious about catch- 

 ing my steamer, as the winter was rapidly closing in, when 

 at last Sam put in a welcome appearance with my boat. 

 The morning following, he and his son, Wells and myself, 

 with a step-son of Old Man Lane named Sandy Gear, 

 started on our sixty miles' vo}^age to the south. This 

 distance we expected to be able to make by the afternoon 

 of the next day, but, owing to contrary winds, evening 

 found us still within the broad-spread arms of Jack Lane's 

 Bay, and in the morning, after a night ashore round an 

 open fire, the wind hardened to a gale, which blew almost 

 in our faces and prevented our making much progress. As 

 such storms often hold back the traveller in Labrador a 

 week or more at that season, we lost no opportunity to 



