THE TKIP TO WAHPOOSKOW 133 



stones and boulders to its own music, and the rich rose-pink, 

 cone-like tops of the water-vervain, now in bloom, dancing 

 with it. 



Our camp that night was a delightful one, amongst slender 

 birch and spruce and pine, the ground covered with blue- 

 berries, partridge berries, and cranberries in abimdanee. 

 The berries of the wolf-willow were also red-ripe, alluring, 

 but bitter to the taste. It was really a romantic scene. 

 Ladoucere had made his camp in a small glade opposite our 

 own, the bend of the river being in, front of us. The tall 

 pines cast their long reflections on the water, our great fires 

 gleamed athwart them, illuminating the under foliage of the 

 birches with magical light, whilst the half-breeds, grouped 

 around and silhouetted by the fires, formed a unique picture 

 which lingers in the memory. We slept like tops that night 

 beneath the stars, on a soft bed of berry bushes, and never 

 woke until a thin morning rain sprinkling in our faces 

 fetched us to our feet. 



A good bacon breakfast and then to our paddles, the river- 

 bends as graceful as ever, but with fewer rapids. At every 

 turn we came upon luxuriant hay meadows, with generally 

 heavy woods opposite them, the river showing the same easy 

 and accessible shore, whilst now and then giant hoof-prints, 

 a broken marge, and miry grass showed where a moose had 

 recently sprawled up the bank. ITothing, indeed, could sur- 

 pass the rich colour-tone of this delightful stream — an 

 exquisite opaqueness even imder the clouds; but, interfused 

 with sunshine, like that rare and translucent brown spread 

 by the pencil of a master. 



As we were paddling along, the willows on shore suddenly 

 parted, and an Indian runner appeared on the bank, who 

 hailed us and, handing over a sack of mail with letters and 

 papers for us all, sped off as suddenly as he came. 



It was now the last day of August, raw and drizzly, and 

 having paddled about ten miles through a like country, we 

 came in sight of the Pelican Mountains to the west, and, later 



