THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 39 
deer skin, which I had carried in addition to my blanket, had 
become so water soaked as to be too heavy to carry, and was left 
behind. Fortunately by noon on the seventh day the clouds 
broke and let the warming sunlight stream through upon me. 
Thus I was enabled to dry my clothes, and still better, ere long, 
to make a fire and cook some venison, which was much appre- 
ciated. At night, as I went into camp (more properly my 
blanket), I shot a fine fat buck and cooked as much of it for 
future use as I could with the little moss I could find. 
The 20th of August was my eighth day out, and I had 
made only thirty-three miles of westing, but now the weather 
seemed to have cleared, so I pushed on with fresh courage, pass- 
ing several small lakes and bringing up on the summit of a hill 
overlooking a larger one. 
Here, observing the approach of a heavy storm, I pro- 
ceeded to fortify myself, as well as my blanket and canvas 
wrapper would admit of, and so fairly well weathered out a bad 
night. But the next day was intolerable. I endeavored to 
push on, but so cold and drenching was the rain that I shivered 
even as I travelled under my water-soaked burden. Later in 
the day the weather became so thick that I was as one walking 
in the dark—not knowing what was before me—and soon found 
myself almost entirely surrounded by water. I was now 
forced to wait an improvement in the weather, and so, partak- 
ing of a wet biscuit, for I had nothing dry, and a drink of 
brandy, I lay down on the sand. 
All night the cold rain came down in torrents, so I was per- 
fectly saturated. As the morning dawned conditions were not 
improved, for the rain had changed to snow and clothed the 
landscape in her chilling garment of white. It left me in an 
extremely uncomfortable condition, to say the least, being with- 
out shelter, fire or cooked food, but the worst seemed to have 
passed, for at eleven o’clock the next day the sunlight broke 
forth again and brought me much-needed relief. 
With the clearing weather I found myself to be on a long 
high point of sand, reaching far out into a lake, from which it 
would be necessary to retreat and make a detour, but anything 
