Winter Camp-Fires 
|H # —Flooded Out of One Camp and Burned 
Out of Another—Conclusion 
especially in the middle of the tent, but did not 
attach much importance to this fact. 
About nine that evening, Pascal woke me out 
w I Rir.NF.LL 
T HE winter after Pascal and I had made our 
unfortunate trip to the barrens we decided 
on a second expedition to the same region. 
This time we left toward the end of December and 
altered our plan of campaign. Instead of going 
to the Indian hut, we portaged our tent and the 
necessary provisions right up to the little lake 
mentioned as being near the summit of the 
mountain, taking the route where night had 
caught us on the way down the year before. 
Pascal decided to tent directly on the tiny 
rivulet which was the outlet of the lake. In 
this way we had a tent site already cleared and 
perfectly level, and as Pascal remarked, the 
water hole was right at the door, regulation 
Indian fashion. This rivulet had only about 
two inches of water in it, and we had to shovel 
away four feet of snow with our snowshoes 
before we got down to the water. One would 
say that under ordinary circumstances this was 
a safe place to tent. 
Christmas eve found us comfortably installed 
and we spent the time telling stories or specu¬ 
lating as to our chances of seeing as many cari¬ 
bou as the year before. Pascal was a gieat 
believer in dreams, and the previous night in 
his sleep he had seen many strange beasts. This 
he announced was an excellent omen. 
I will not give a detailed account of our hunt¬ 
ing. During three days on the barrens we saw 
only eleven caribou and secured two. Both 
heads were very small, but remarkably sym¬ 
metrical. 
A spectacle witnessed during one night of 
our stay was worth all the fatigues and dis¬ 
comforts of the trip. There was a wonderful 
and rare display of Northern lights and I 
routed out Pascal and made him climb with me 
up above the scrub timber to the rocky treeless 
part of the mountain where a perfect view was 
obtained. I cannot attempt to describe what 
we saw. The outlook everywhere was thrill¬ 
ing and awe-inspiring. We seemed under a 
celestial dome of exquisite and infinitely varied 
light, movement and color. Never have I seen 
either such a display or the dome-like effect. 
The lights were brightest in the north and east, 
but the radiance extended on all sides as well 
as overhead. I reluctantly tore myself away, 
but the spectacle had so impressed me that I 
was unable to sleep, and as long as the display 
lasted I kept going to the tent door to catch 
other glimpses. 
We had packed our outfit up on our backs, 
but with the two caribou had now far more than 
we could handle in this manner on the return. 
It was, therefore, decided that Pascal should 
A LYNX THAT WE TRAPPED. 
make a trip to the river with a load of meat 
and return with our sleigh. A good road hav¬ 
ing been broken, we could take everything that 
remained in one sleigh load. 
Pascal returned late, having taken a lot of 
trouble to prepare an easy passage for our de¬ 
scent with the loaded sleigh. Happy and un¬ 
suspicious as we were, our second series of mis¬ 
fortunes was now close upon us. 
Some time during the night a warm wind 
came up from the Bay des Chaleurs, the tem¬ 
perature rose and it began to rain, and rained 
torrents all next day. We began to sink visibly, 
of a doze by shouting that the brook was start¬ 
ing to run through the tent. Sure enough, our 
innocent little brook had risen, soaked and 
packed the snow, and had finally started to run 
over it in a considerable stream, which aug¬ 
mented even while I watched in my first aston¬ 
ished moment of comprehension. Our inaction, 
however, did not last long. Our first care was 
to get the stove outside without disturbing the 
fire, for otherwise we would have had a serious 
time of it getting a fire going again that night. 
Next I stood inside the tent and threw out 
the baggage to Pascal. I was stationed on a 
caribou skin, which rose on all sides of me as 
the water swirled under it and lifted it up, but 
I kept dry in my vantage point on the center of 
the skin until I had to step off so as to throw 
out the hide itself. 
When I stepped off the hide I sank up to the 
waist in slush and water, and while getting the 
tent down, we both had to wade about in this 
manner with the brook rising all the time. 
Then after getting our snowshoes on, we had 
to tent again out of the way of the brook. We 
were in pitch darkness and the rain was falling 
heavily. First we groped around for birch trees, 
from which we gathered the bark to make 
torches, and here came in the benefit of the fire 
which was still burning in the pipeless stove, 
for with wet hands and wet bark it wou.d have 
been a difficult thing to get the torches in ac¬ 
tion with the aid of matches alone. 
Pascal did most of the making of camp, and I 
continued to supply torches which were hard to 
keep lighted, and which had to be twisted and 
turned constantly. 
When we were about half through pitching 
camp, and after we had been thoroughly soaked, 
the rain turned to hail and snow, and the tem¬ 
perature began to fall, and before we had fin¬ 
ished and were ready to crawl into the shelter 
of the tent, our clothes were frozen and crackled 
with every movement. 
It was past eleven when, thoroughly disgusted, 
shivering and chilled to the bone, we were able 
to close the tent door, and to try to get a little 
warmth into our bodies. Everything in the tent 
was wet or frozen and we spent the rest of a 
miserable night drying ourselves and our be¬ 
longings. 
We boiled some water and dosed ourselves 
with cups of hot painkiller, to which we added 
whole spoonfuls of black pepper. The mixtuie 
nearly strangled us, but we did not even catch 
cold. 
Our sleigh road, which was mostly on the 
brook, was now useless. Although it had turned 
cold again, the brook had become a torrent, and 
on the way down we had to take to the woods 
