66 
FOREST AND STREAM 
down, up and down, packing the soft snow 
with our shoes, before we put the dogs to 
the ascent. Then all four of us, with lines 
about our chests, hauled each sled up, a 
few feet at a time. The dogs could do 
little except flounder about, tangling up the 
traces. 
That night we made another little log 
cabin, the last building. It was unoccupied 
and we promptly took possession. An ex¬ 
amination of our dogs found them to be in 
a pitiable condition. We were fitted out 
with heavy leather harness and scarcely 
one of the stiff, hard collars fitted the ani¬ 
mals that wore them. They were too large 
and, setting down over the dogs’ shoulders 
as they pulled, had quickly chafed and 
worn hair and hide off. Several of the 
poor brutes already had open and bleeding 
wounds. 
“No wonder they can’t pull!” exclaimed 
Kennedy. “Those collars would fit a 
horse.” 
A T six o’clock in the morning we were 
under way again. The night’s frost 
had formed a crust on the snow, that, 
not firm enough to bear our weight, only ad¬ 
ded to our labor. The shoes broke through 
it, sank to their usual depth in the unpacked 
snow underneath, and then had to be 
dragged up again through the brittle crust. 
The Captain and I were both tired when 
we had started in the morning and the out¬ 
look for the day promised little relaxing of 
our efforts, and prospects of little progress 
as reward. However we were now but a 
mile and a half from the river, and there 
was always the expectation of meeting the 
French packet. 
Shortly after nine we arrived on the bank 
of the Frederickhouse, and at the sight of 
the winding frozen stream before us our 
spirits rose a little. Though we had cov¬ 
ered but thirteen miles of our journey, this 
point was one of the milestones on the 
route. The descent to the river was very 
steep, and the dogs were unloosed and al¬ 
lowed to scramble down alone. Then we 
turned the sleds on their sides to check 
them, and, throwing ourselves on top of 
the loads, plowed down through the deep 
snow. 
No sign of a trail showed itself on the 
river, whose shallow waters are swift and 
treacherous, weakening the ice in the most 
unexpected places. So, to guard against 
breaking through, we decided to keep close 
to the east bank, which we knew to be the 
customary route followed by the Indians. 
Whilst the others were untangling the 
dogs’ traces and tightening up the loads I 
started downstream. Presently I heard a 
shout behind me. Turning, I saw Kennedy 
pointing to the bend of the river ahead, 
and following the direction of his arm, a 
most welcome sight met my gaze. Just 
emerging from a short portage across a 
wooded point were three men. A white 
man was leading and breaking trail for 
two Indians, who were each hauling a light 
toboggan, assisted by three dogs. 
“The packet!” I cried, and hurried on to 
meet them. It was Revillon’s packet al¬ 
right, twelve days out from Moose. An 
exchange of greetings, a word or two of 
each other’s destination, “Good luck!” and 
“Good-bye!” and we each took up the oth¬ 
er’s trail. 
Each man again drove his own team and 
toboggan. The broad, packed trail made 
by the packetmen, though quite fresh and 
not yet frozen, offered better footing for 
the dogs, and, were it not for the galling 
harness, each could have hauled his appor¬ 
tioned load with ease. As it was we only 
crawled, and crossing the short, but tortu¬ 
ous portage much time, energy and patience 
was expended. 
“Never mind,” we said to one another, 
and comforted ourselves with the thought, 
“tomorrow the trail will be frozen and 
we’ll go along as never before. Each night 
the loads grow lighter; there is no ques¬ 
tion of our route now, as we’ve a trail to 
follow. Surely our luck has turned. See 
how many miles the old ship’ll log tomor¬ 
row.” 
It was always “tomorrow” to which we 
looked forward, and thus encouraged and 
cheered by the thought and hopeful once 
more, we pushed on. 
O UR chief regret seemed to be for the 
hard, well-trodden trail we were leav¬ 
ing in our wake, as navigable for 
toboggans as a city street. We even spoke 
/estingly of retracing it, simply for the joy 
of traveling over such a surface. The sailors 
good-naturedly cursed the good luck of the In¬ 
dians in Cochrane, when they in a few days 
would start their return trip to Moose, would 
have the hard, smooth road we were painfully 
breaking for them. It was a selfish and unchar¬ 
itable feeling, I admit, but the snow trails do not 
always breed Samaritan-like disposi¬ 
tions. Towards noon the weather 
softened, the sun shone very warmly, 
and the trail grew wet and sticky. 
In places the water had oozed up 
through the snow and the toboggans 
hauled as over sand. We were forced to 
return to the previous day’s arrangement— 
relaying each load in turn. That evening 
we made an open camp on the west shore 
of the river, with only five miles credited 
tc^ the day’s run. Fifteen miles, back and 
forth, we had tramped and hauled to gain 
that five miles headway. Ere the fire was 
made snowflakes were falling, and, though 
all hands were wet through, no attempts 
were made to dry out either persons or 
clothing. We were too tired to 
bother about personal comfort. 
After a hastily-cooked supper of 
bacon, biscuits and tea, we rolled 
up in our sleeping bags. The 
wind backed round to the east’ard and the 
snow fell ever heavier. It was wet and 
sticky, and by midnight there was a man¬ 
tle of white, three inches deep, spread over 
bag and blanket. The soft flakes melted 
and ran down our faces and necks. Sleep 
was out of the question. For a time I sat 
up with a buckskin coat over my head and 
shoulders but was finally driven back to 
seek what warmth I could in the wet and 
frozen blankets. From three o’clock till 
daylight old Captain Tom sat on his bag 
with a rubber sheet over his head, smoking 
his pipe in silence. “What fools we were 
not to spread the sleigh-wrappers and make 
a tent,” he said, as we attempted to cook 
some breakfast in the morning. “We 
should have seen this weather coming last 
night and prepared for it. My, O my, what 
a mess! We’ve added a hundredweight of 
water and ice to our loads now. We’ll 
never get these robes dried on the trail.” 
A ND right he was! We could scarcely 
roll the frozen robes up small enough 
to squeeze them into bags. In¬ 
stead of letting up, the storm increased in 
fury, swinging, now, round to the north- 
’ard. This was Easter Monday. All traces 
of the packet trail were covered and we 
were worse off than ever. Our bedding 
was wet and frozen, our dogs crippled by 
the ill-fitting harness, and, a few days more 
of trail-smashing and the skipper and my¬ 
self would be “all in.” And all the while, 
with no sign of a break, the storm bore 
relentlessly, fair into our teeth. “It would 
not be so bad,” said the Captain, “if we 
were making any headway. But here we’ve 
worked for three days—worked about as 
hard as we can at this game, and what 
have we done? Fifteen miles!” It was 
true. Not one good day’s travel lay behind 
us and already three days’ provisions were 
eaten. Surely but one course lay open 
to us—turn back to Cochrane and fit out 
afresh, fit out as these past three days’ ex¬ 
periences had taught us. Much as I disliked 
the idea of retreat I yet deemed it the wis¬ 
est plan. We left one toboggan and cached 
three hundred pounds of our provi¬ 
sions—half of it dog-food—on the 
"c/lT-ARx" 
