IN TIMBER AND BRtLfiE. 227 



been for a meal from a barrel of pickled pork which we found 

 in a disused logging hut, we could hardly have succeeded 

 in accomplishing the distance in time. It was nearly 

 2 a.m. when at length the seemingly endless road wound 

 into a clearing from which the sound of cattle feeding was 

 one of the most welcome we had ever heard. 



Refreshed by food we pushed forward, leaving the buck- 

 board to follow, and by four o'clock the same afternoon I 

 was aboard my steamer. As I bade Edward farewell, 

 we agreed that, as it was obviously impossible to accept 

 defeat, we would do our best to retrieve our failures in 

 the following September. 



This plan, as well as a mortifying sense of my late ill- 

 success, was much in my mind during the intervening 

 months; but I'homme propose, and the September trip 

 was ultimately made impossible owing to an invitation to 

 play cricket in Philadelphia and Canada. As the dates of 

 our matches covered the whole of the month of September, 

 it was not until the 6th of October that Edward and I 

 once more found ourselves on the road for the arena of our 

 return match with the caribou. This time fortune had 

 been our friend, and, thanks to the kind help of Mr. F. W. 

 Ross, I had received permission to hunt over a new country. 

 My only regret was that Mr. Ross was not able to accom- 

 pany me, as he had originally intended. 



Our journey was marred by one of those irritating occur- 

 rences of which a hunter over-eager to reach his hunting- 

 ground is apt to become the victim. I imprudently hired a 

 " rig " and its driver, who happened also to be the owner 

 of the vehicle, without bargaining as to price, as the 

 man had recently worked for some friends at the usual 

 tariff. Hence it was that, early on the road, I was faced 

 with the ultimatum, " Either you give me fiftee dollars, 

 or I take your baggage no furder," a state of affairs hard 

 to bear without temptation to resort to a course which, 



