WE-NEN-GWAY. 293 



per, with the rice and beans and would take no more. 

 I have always been in doubt whether her action was 

 genuinely generous or not, for the whole party visited 

 me next day, and again when we moved to the upper end 

 of the lake, and if a balance was struck between those 

 two fish (which may have weighed twelve pounds) and 

 an unknown quantity of bread, beans, rice, coffee and 

 sugar really, I don't know if there would be any bal- 

 ance. 



I have remarked on the absence of game and other 

 animal life. The snow which fell in September, and had 

 lain without addition or melting, had become too hard 

 to record the passing of small animals, such as mink, 

 rabbits or even the heavier 'coons, but I saw a mink and 

 a fox, and heard the great gray timber wolf several times. 

 The Canada jay and the raven were the most common 

 birds, and I saw the little chickadee and a bird which I 

 did not know, but now think might have been the shrike, 

 or butcher bird. I never ceased to be surprised at the 

 absence of life in this wilderness. 



December came and the cold increased. One morn- 

 ing th.e trees were bursting with a sound like rifles, and 

 Gibbs thought we were attacked. He and Crosby 

 jumped up out of bed before daylight, but soon returned 

 when the rest of the party laughed at them, for we knew 

 what the noise meant, having heard it before. After 

 reaching Crow Wing we learned that the thermometer 

 had been 40 below zero on several occasions. There 

 was no wind in the heavy timber, and we were warmly 

 clad and could hardly realize how cold it was. Coats 

 were discarded, but no man knew how many flannel 

 shirts he had on; and as long as the body part of a pair 

 of trousers held together the legs of them were reinforced 

 by cylinders made of bed ticking fastened at top and bot- 



