May 28, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
849 
hunting shirt was frozen and everything I had 
on was stiff with yellow mud. Rufus offered 
to build a fire, but I told him I should freeze to 
death while he was getting it built. I took my 
pack, rifle and hatchet, and telling him that he 
would find me at the home camp, either alive 
or dead, I started back for the lake (Caucomgo- 
moc). I used all the will power I had trying 
to travel fast. For the first mile it seemed to 
me that I must chill to death; I was sick at 
my stomach and wanted to lie down and sleep; 
but my pack was quite heavy and my exertions 
began to warm me up, and by the time I 
reached our canoe on Caucomgomoc I was get¬ 
ting limbered up, so that I was quite com¬ 
fortable. 
“As the canoe was too heavy for me to carry, 
I cut round skids, and tipping it on the side, I 
rolled and slid it into the lake. When I tried 
to paddle, my clothes were frozen so stiff that 
I could hardly move my arms, and as I could 
not get my hunting shirt off, I made very slow 
progress, but at last reached home. The yel¬ 
low mud had soaked through, so that I had to 
wade out into the lake and wash thoroughly be¬ 
fore I could put on clean clothes. After this 
it took me a long time to wash the mud out 
of my clothes. After dinner I started out in the 
canoe to look traps. It was softening down, 
and before night I was wet through by a cold 
rain. Rufus came back at night, having given 
up looking our Loon Lake line. He had spent 
his day making sable traps. Probably he was 
anxious about me, though he did not say so. 
“Oct. 25. Rose before day. Very cold, wind 
rose with the sun, but it was fair for us, and, 
starting early, we soon ran down to the Sis. 
Took out four mink going up stream, a lynx at 
Richardson’s old camp and a mink and a sable 
at the head of Daggett Pond.” 
The ice was thick in Daggett Pond, but we 
found a narrow passage on the left-hand side 
just wide enough to get through. As there was 
great danger of the ice swinging and closing 
the way by which we came, I charged Rufus to 
hurry, and I started to look traps on the stream 
while he went across the country to look the 
traps at Shallow Lake. I hurried and was back 
in good season, although I had as much to do 
as he. I waited for a full hour, while the ice 
was swinging and blocking the way by which 
we came. Finding that it would surely be dark 
before we could cross the pond, if we crossed 
it at all, I went back into the woods and peeled 
a large lot of birch bark and made it into torches. 
It was cold waiting in the north wind, but at 
length Rufus came. 
The passage by which we came was now 
closed fast and our only chance was to break 
ice for more than a mile from one place of open 
water to another. It was near dark when we 
started. We cut heavy poles for breaking the 
ice and broke out into the longest lead of open 
water that we could see. The ice kept moving 
so as to close in behind us, and in some in¬ 
stances it opened in front. In places we broke 
it, and in places we got out and hauled the 
canoe upon it. Once we thought we should not 
be able, to get through, and the canoe leaked 
badly from being cut by the ice. But at last, 
long after dark, we landed at the foot of Round 
Pond, where a point of ledge offered the only 
chance to camp. There-was no place to pitch 
a tent, but a small shed camp of spruce bark. 
fa- - . . XSpSiP .. ---- 
FIG. 7—SABLE SKINS ON STRETCHERS HUNG IN 
CAMP. 
FIG. 8—MINK SKIN ON STRETCHER — SHOWING 
METHOD OF FASTENING SKIN WITHOUT TACKS. 
open to the north wind, was standing. The 
ground in front, by years of camping, had been 
burned down at least two feet below the level. 
It was so dark that our only way to get fire¬ 
wood was to tie a torch to a stick and go down 
into the swamp and cut by torchlight. We 
could get no boughs and were obliged to lie 
on two curled-up sheets of spruce bark with 
only a single blanket apiece, our usual allow¬ 
ance when camping away from home. We were 
too cold to sleep much, and daylight disclosed 
the outlet frozen, so we had to break ice a good 
deal in going down the Sis; but at last we 
reached Caucomgomoc Lake. 
While scraping up some pine cones to make 
a fire for dinner, close behind a lone pine on 
the point between the lake and the Sis, I un¬ 
covered a ball of native pitch as large as a 
man’s fist. It had evidently been hidden by 
some Indian who had taken this pine as a mark 
to find it by. It looked as if it had lain here 
for years, yet although it would have been nice 
to kindle my fire with, I replaced it and built 
the fire elsewhere. It is singular how often 
one hunter finds what another has hidden. At 
least half a dozen times I have found hidden 
articles which there did not seem one chance 
in a million of finding. 
The wind blew so that it was no use to try 
the lake, so we pitched our tent in a sheltered 
bend and skinned and stretched our fur. Rufus 
said that when at Shallow Lake he saw smoke 
across the lake. So, in the morning, as the 
wind blew worse than ever, if that were pos¬ 
sible, rather than lie still, we concluded to go 
by land to Shallow Lake and, see whom we had 
for neighbors. 
After crossing the stream, we were at first 
confronted by swamp and bog, but finally we 
got on hardwood ridges, and after a ten-mile 
walk, we came to where Richardson’s crew of 
twenty men were building a camp. They had 
come in from behind by way of L T mbazooksus 
and Longley Pond, and had hauled their outfit 
a long way on a sled by hand. Stopping only 
for dinner and to hear the news “out in the 
States,” we took our homeward way. We saw 
many new signs of bears, and I shot three par¬ 
tridges, two birch and one spruce (Canada 
grouse). 
“Although it blew very hard, we tried to get 
up the lake on the east shore, but after a hard 
pull of two hours, we had to give it up and 
come back and camp in the place we had left. 
Both the canoe and ourselves were coated with 
ice from the sea which flew over us, and our 
hands were nearly frozen. 
“Wind continued all night, and as it was even 
worse in the morning, we packed up everything 
into two packs, except the tent, which we left 
standing, hid the canoe and started to walk 
around the lake to the home camp.” In making 
my pack, I put in two or three pounds from the 
hip of my lynx. Rufus wished to know what 
I intended to do with that. I told him that I 
should have it for dinner if we did not get any¬ 
thing better before noon, as all we had left 
was a small piece of bear’s fat and a piece of 
chocolate. 
“It began to snow and continued all day. As 
there was no path, for some miles we crowded 
our way along the sea-wall of the lake, which 
was better than the cedar swamp behind. A 
little before noon I saw a partridge crouching 
