A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



of second-growth pine which bordered the banks of this stream. 

 Behind us we could occasionally hear the indistinct sounds of 

 shouting and profanity as the packer and cook drove the weary 

 pack-train around the numerous windfalls in the winding trail. 

 Suddenly we had several fleeting glimpses of the white rumps 

 of two deer bounding between the low pines ahead. We dis- 

 mounted, and hurried to the banks of the river in time to see 

 a buck and doe swimming in midstream toward the opposite 

 shore. At the report of the rifle the buck, which was bringing 

 up the rear, went completely under, and then, reappearing, 

 swam to the far shore, where it struggled in the shallow water 

 with a broken back. The doe splashed out of the stream, and 

 in a couple of bounds disappeared in the cover of the thickets 

 on the opposite side. Finding it impossible to land, owing to 

 its paralyzed hind-quarters, the wounded deer again struggled 

 to the middle of the river, and was rapidly carried down-stream 

 with the current while Dell and I followed along the banks. 

 Several hundred yards farther down the crippled 'buck floun- 

 dered into the shallow water on our side of the stream. At 

 that I shot it again. Then we both waded into the cold, swift 

 water, and secured the feebly struggling animal before it was 

 washed away by the current. It was after dark when we camped 

 in a small marsh at the outlet of the lake, but at daylight we 

 packed our horses and started around its borders.- 



We spent all the morning travelling six miles to the mouth of 

 Sitkem Creek, as we were obliged to cut a trail through spruce 

 thickets for almost all of this distance. On the other side of 

 this stream we pitched camp on a wide beach of fine w^hite sand 

 which was covered with numerous wolf and deer tracks. Sugar 

 Lake is a beautiful round sheet of water nestling among high 

 mountains, and was given its name from the fact that a pros- 

 pector's pack-horse, loaded with sugar, had fallen from a ledge 

 into its waters. A wide beach leads back to a growth of cotton- 

 w^oods, above which a succession of black spruce ridges ter- 



240 



