126 HUNTING CAMPS. 



remembrance of the stag of Island Pond, which carried a 

 far finer head, withheld me, and presently one of the does 

 got to windward and the three instantly disappeared, with 

 a tremendous splashing of water. 



All day the rain held on, blowing up before a strong 

 south-east wind ; through which Wynyard and Frank 

 arrived. But the morning of the 28th broke beautifully 

 blue, and we crossed the lake to its western end. We now 

 had all about us absolutely virgin country, and when Wyn- 

 yard, who had walked round part of the way by the shore, 

 joined me we spent most of the day exploring it. We saw 

 but little sign of caribou, as the woodland was thick, so in 

 the afternoon Jack and I climbed up through a wide ex- 

 panse of green timber on to the high country, but had to 

 return before we could examine it. That night we decided 

 to separate, Wynyard taking the southern side of the lake 

 while Jack and I, with packs, were to travel as far as we 

 could towards Middle Ridge. This Middle Ridge, which 

 may be said to form the backbone of the island, is not so 

 much a single low range of hills as a series of undulating 

 uplands covered with trees. At that time, to the best of 

 my belief, no white man had ever set foot on Middle Ridge, 

 though many had seen it, for it is visible for a great number 

 of miles, presenting as it does almost the only recognisable 

 feature jn a broad landscape. We found some difficulty 

 in carrying our packs through the dense woods that lie be- 

 tween the lake and height of land, but at length we took 

 advantage of a marsh heading upwards. The rain of the 

 earlier days had now turned to snow driven by a heavy 

 wind from the north, and it was after a tiring pack that we 

 at last put up our camp among an isolated group of spruces 

 in the middle of a wide marsh. By the time this was done 

 there still remained a couple of hours of daylight, which left 

 us time to take a look before night closed in at the new coun- 

 try, in which we hoped to find evidences of a large migration, 



