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114 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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take us. We were in hopes that they-might 
not be so very far in our rear. 
Our tent was not nearly so comfortable 
as the stove that had been left behind at 
New Post. In the woods of the portage 
the stove-pipes had been smashed and the 
stove was useless without them. Jim at¬ 
tempted to cook some breakfast over the 
remains of the night fire which had melted 
a bed down through the deep snow, four 
feet below our level. 
We each had a mug of strong tea, well 
flavored with spruce, and then crawled back 
into our bags. We reconciled ourselves to 
a day of inaction and discomfort, and 
awaited the pleasure of the weather. Imag¬ 
ine our surprise then, when, at nine o clock, 
we were aroused by a barking and shouting 
at the foot of the bank. 
“Here are the French Indians 1 ” sang out 
Kennedy, as the two packetmen climbed the 
bank and came over to our fire, grinning. 
“Want to use the fire?” I 
asked. 
“Yes—no eat yet,” replied one 
of them. 
“Alright, help yourself. There’s 
a pail of tea you’re welcome to. 
We’re going to break camp and 
follow you.” 
Ten inches of snow had drift¬ 
ed over the track since we 
climbed up off the river the even¬ 
ing before, so we let the Indians 
with their broad shoes go ahead, 
while we followed on their trail. 
But the packetmen were heavily 
taxed, each hauling a toboggan, 
and had only three dogs to help 
them, one harnessed to one sled, 
two to the other. 
Our headway, then, was pain¬ 
fully slow. To increase our 
speed I bargained with them to 
haul one of their loads while 
they acted as guides and still 
broke trail for us. With this ar¬ 
rangement we made much better 
time. Still there was no change 
in the weather, no let up to the 
We were one mile from Cedar Creek. Here 
the French packet passed us once more, 
evidently bent on making a long day of it. 
“They’re trying to overhaul the other 
crew this side of Moose,” said Kennedy, 
when’ the Indians had passed out of sight. 
“They’ve a fair idea just how many miles 
the others are ahead of them.” 
“That’s their game, all right. It will be 
a feather in their cap, too, for the H. B. C. 
men had a six days’ start on them. Of 
course they had the advantage of our trail 
all the way, and as we darn well know, that 
helps some.” 
Six o’clock in the morning saw us under 
way and we soon passed the spot where our 
Indian friends had spent the night. It was 
only two miles below our own fire. They 
had evidently made a very early start for 
naught but their trail could we see ahead 
of us. Before the breakfast fire was kin¬ 
dled we had covered nearly twelve miles. 
The Cabin of a Trapper on the Way to Hudson 
storm, and the Indians evidently tired of 
boring into the teeth of it. They selected a 
wooded spot on the west shore and pre¬ 
pared to make their camp. 
“There is no good place farther on.” 
they answered, in reply to my query. “High 
banks, no plenty wood.” 
So we camped alongside of them. 
T HE morning of April 0 broke fine and 
clear, and at ten o’clock we came to 
where the H. B. packet had spent the 
previous night. Three days before us they 
had left Cochrane and now could not be 
more than five hours in the lead. There 
were sixty miles ahead of us yet before we 
could tie up our dogs in the shelter of the 
buildings at Moose. In that distance we 
hoped to overtake the packet. 
With their trail to guide us we took the 
lead and kept it until five that afternoon. 
Then the Indians suddenly sprinted ahead 
of us and, on reaching a wooded point, left 
their sleds on the river and hurriedly boiled 
their kettle on the shore. We passed them 
' an d kept on until six, when we selected a 
spot for the night and made an open camp. 
Little time we lost that day over our fires, 
boiling the kettle again about noon. 
The day was fair and bright, the loads 
now grown much lighter, and the dogs in 
good spirits and condition. So at four 
o’clock we decided to make another hasty 
meal and then push on until sundown. On 
the morrow we should make Moose. By 
six o’clock we had gained nothing on the 
packetmen, for even on the long, straight 
reaches of the river, not a sight of them 
rewarded our almost ceaseless efforts to 
overhaul and stand by them. 
“I believe they are pushing right through 
to Moose without camping to-night,” I sug¬ 
gested to the others. “Some of these chaps 
would travel all night on the river for the 
sake of getting into the post, and home, a 
half day earlier. I’m afraid we’ll not see them 
till we reach Moose Factory to-morrow.” 
There were no further comments on 
the subject and we drove on in silence. At 
seven, when the sun’s rays were following 
the parent orb down behind the western 
tree fringe, we began to cast about for a 
suitable camping ground. Then a curl of 
blue smoke on the edge of the north bank 
caught the eye, and we hastened forward 
to see who the travelers might be. “I 
thought the dogs acted as though there 
were someone not far ahead,” said Ken¬ 
nedy. “They’ve bucked up wonderfully 
this last half hour.” 
S TRANGERS we found not, but our old 
friends, the packetmen—both parties. 
The rival packets were camped to¬ 
gether in the one tent, and in all likelihood 
jesting over the efforts of the white men, 
the “mustagoosoo chee-man” (white sail¬ 
ors) to play the Indian at his own game. 
We camped beside them, and then and 
there determined to make a good try to 
beat them into Moose. The race was not 
yet over; ahead were thirty miles—another 
day’s run. 
Few pains were taken with the layout of 
that night’s camp. It would be our last 
night sleeping out—for a few days, at least. 
The dogs were fed the last of their rations; 
there was only a handful of meat 
and the bag of soggy biscuits that 
had gone into the creek, a scant 
meal for fourteen hard-worked, 
hungry huskies. We had lost 
one—a weakling—the first ,day 
out from Cochrane. 
To each of my four I gave, in 
addition, a slice of bacon, for 
the next day would be a hard 
one on them, and, as long as the 
trail was good and the traveling 
fast, they would have my weight 
added to the load. I knew that 
in my semi-crippled state I could 
not long keep up to them on 
foot. Before turning in I en¬ 
tered the Indians’ tent and asked 
them at what hour they purposed 
starting in the morning. 
“Five o’clock,” answered the 
leader of the Hudson Bay party. 
“We’ll follow you, then,” I said. 
“I’m anxious to get into Moose 
as early as possible.” 
They grunted and smiled and 
I knew full well that they would 
make it a point to get away an 
hour earlier than the time agreed upon. 
I went them one better. At three o’clock 
I was awake, and as I had expected, I could 
hear the crackling of our neighbors’ fire. 
So, asking Kennedy to make me a mug of 
tea, I got out and harnessed up my team 
by starlight. 
My stiffened back prevented me from 
lashing up the load and this task I turned 
over to Jimmie, while I went back to the 
fire. Jvlot waiting to eat anything, I gulped 
down the scalding drink and, putting a cake 
of chocolate into my pocket, slipped my 
feet into the snowshoe thongs. 
Then I cut a stout stick and drove the 
whining, grumbling dogs out on the river. 
The evening before I had noted that the 
trail led on past where the packets had 
turned off and into this track I turned the 
leader. It was fortunate for me that such 
a trail lay ahead of me—made, I presumed 
by some Indian traveling down-stream to 
the post. 
My leader, “Puppie,” had not been trained 
to take up directions by word of command, 
and without either a track or a forerunner 
ahead of her, she was practically useless. 
