FOREST AND STREAM 
115 
Tut now, down went her nose to the trail, 
^nd the three huskies behind her, with an 
■occasional backward look for their mates 
who were still in camp, strained to the 
traces, and we hiked on down the river. 
As they warmed up to the pace I was 
■obliged to throw myself on top of the load, 
■else fall behind. When a half mile down¬ 
stream, I looked back. It was not yet 
■dawn but I could see through the frost 
dust of the early mortiing air a row of 
black dots leave the woods and stretch out 
towards the middle of the river. The row 
■grew shorter and shorter, as they straight¬ 
ened out in line. It quickly merged into a 
single dot and I knew that the packetmen 
were on my trail. 
Then I drove those wolf-dogs as they 
had never been driven before, with words 
and blows, until a four-mile clip was stead¬ 
ily maintained. Occasionally, to warm and 
•encourage the dogs, I got off and ran 
awhile. By seven o’clock the trail led me 
among the islands at “The Forks,” and 
Fere I had my last glimpse of the Indians, 
who had been steadily falling behind In 
half an hour more we passed out of the 
Abittibi, on the broad expanse of the Moose 
River. The trail on the frozen crust was 
a day old, hard and glossy; the plucky lit¬ 
tle huskies seemed untiring, and their pace 
seldom slackened. 
W HEN about eight miles down the 
Moose some Indians left the woods 
on the south shore and turned 
•down the river a mile ahead of me. It was 
the outfit whose trail I had been following. 
The sight and scent of the party ahead 
made my team impatient to overtake them 
and in half an hour we had caught up the 
distance and I learned they were a family 
party returning from a moose hunting trip. 
“How far to Moose?” I asked of the 
eldest. The Indian held up ten fingers. 
■“Ten miles,” he answered. 
“All right. Thanks; good-bye !” and my 
team sprang ahead of the others. The na¬ 
tives turned towards the south bank while 
I kept straight on down-stream, my leader 
still following a faint trail made by some¬ 
one’s komatik. Shortly afterwards my 
troubles commenced. The trail grew fainter 
and fainter, till the leader could pick it up 
only in occasional windswept places. Soon 
no trace whatever was visible and, without 
any sign to guide them the dogs turned 
towards the woods. 
In vain I attempted to keep them head¬ 
ing down the river. Without someone 
ahead of her, or a track to follow, the 
leader was lost. The river bank and the 
woods had always meant to the tired brutes 
rest, and camp, and supper. So, now, when¬ 
ever “Puppie,” the leader, turned shore- 
wards, “Brandy,” “Weasel,” and most of 
all, “Cronje,” my big wheel-dog, would 
back her up with all their strength. 
My weak-backed efforts to stop them 
were unavailing and nothing halted them 
but the deep, soft snowdrifts of the bank, 
in which the toboggan stuck fast. To make 
matters worse, the southerly breeze and 
warm midday sun began to make the sur¬ 
face snow sticky. 
Whenever the dogs halted the wet snow 
stuck to the bottom of the toboggan like 
clay, and the boards had to be scraped clean 
with an axe. I would perform this opera¬ 
tion, straighten out the team, and get under 
way. But always the same thing happened 
—back to the woods. I swore at the dogs 
in Cree and in English; they only cowered 
in the snow and watched me from out of 
the corners of their eyes; I beat them— 
they only howled and tangled up the traces. 
Then I left them. I knew that the loaded 
toboggan in that wet, sticky snow was suf¬ 
ficient anchor for the brutes and I pur¬ 
posed despatching some Indians after them 
as soon as I reached the post. I put on 
my snowshoes again and went on down 
the river alone. 
But for the loss of the trail I and my 
team would have been in Moose Factory in 
time for dinner; as it was, I arrived at the 
post at two o’clock. Two hours later both 
packets reached their respective headquar¬ 
ters, which are on opposite sides of the 
river. Captain Tom and the rest of my 
party had followed closely on their trail 
and arrived with the Hudson Bay Indians. 
This was Tuesday, April 8, and we had 
left Cochrane on the 29th of March. Eleven 
days on the road, on only nine of which we 
traveled ! Two hundred and ten miles from 
“the line” in less than the average time 
consumed on that route! Not a bad rec¬ 
ord, we thought. 
A THREE days’ rest,at Moose Factory 
put both men and dogs in fit trim for 
the next leg of the journey—that 
from Moose to Rupert’s House, across 
James’ Bay, which was our ultimate desti¬ 
nation. The distance was but one hundred 
and twenty miles, and the Company’s mail 
packet had come in from Rupert a few days 
before and reported the best of . traveling 
on the ice. They had crossed in two days. 
The time at Moose was spent in re-stock¬ 
ing our provisions, and repairing snow- 
shoes, harness, etc. The dogs were fed up 
on fresh moose meat, oatmeal and tallow. 
Here, too, we laid aside the fiat toboggans 
and took two sixteen-foot “komatiks,” or 
Eskimo sleds, instead. 
They are the common and proper vehicle 
on the hard-packed snow and ice of the 
Bay region. A team of six dogs hitched 
to one of these can haul from twelve to 
thirteen hundred weight, from daylight to 
dark. Our loads, from here on, were very 
