"This scene was repeated many times during the voyage. When the
Loons are on the water the Indians toll them by flashing a tin pan
from the bushes behind which the toller hides till the bird is in
range. I saw many clever tollings but I did not see a Loon killed.

"July 19.--I got up at 4, talked strong talk, so actually got away
at 5.30. Plenty grumbling, many meals to-day, with many black looks
and occasional remarks in English: 'Grub no good.' Three days ago
these men were starving on one meal a day, of fish and bad flour;
now they have bacon, dried venison, fresh fish, fresh game, potatoes,
flour, baking powder, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, molasses, lard,
cocoa, dried apples, rice, oatmeal, far more than was promised,
all ad libitum, and the best that the H. B. Co. can supply, and yet
they grumble. There is only one article of the food store to which
they have not access; that is a bag of beans which I am reserving
for our own trip in the north where weight counts for so much.
Beaulieu smiles when I speak to him, but I know he is at the bottom
of all this mischief. To day they made 6 meals and 17 miles--this
is magnificent.

"About 7.30 a pair of Wild Geese (Canada) appeared on a bay. The
boys let off a whoop of delight and rushed on them in canoe and in
boat as though these were their deadliest enemies. I did not think
much of it until I noticed that the Geese would not fly, and it
dawned on me that they were protecting their young behind their own
bodies. A volley of shot-guns and Winchesters and one noble head
fell flat on the water, another volley and the gander fell, then
a wild skurrying, yelling, and shooting for some minutes resulted
in the death of the two downlings.

"I could do nothing to stop them. I have trouble enough in matters
that are my business and this they consider solely their own. It
is nothing but kill, kill, kill every living thing they meet. One
cannot blame them in general, since they live by hunting, and in
this case they certainly did eat every bit of all four birds, even
to their digestive organs with contents; but it seemed hard to have
the devotion of the parents made their death trap when, after all,
we were not in need of meat.

"July 20.--Rose at 4; had trouble on my hands at once. The Indians
would not get up till 5, so we did not get away till 6.20. Beaulieu
was evidently instructing the crew, for at the third breakfast all
together (but perhaps 2) shouted out in English, 'Grub no good!

"I walked over, to them, asked who spoke; no one answered; so, I
reviewed the bargain, pointed out that I had given more than agreed,
and added: 'I did not promise you beans, but will say now that if
you work well I'll give you a bean feast once in a while.'

"They all said in various tongues and ways, 'That's all ri.' Beaulieu
said it several times, and smiled and smiled.

"If the mythical monster that dwells in the bottom of Great Slave
Lake had reached up its long neck now and taken this same half-breed
son of Belial, I should have said, 'Well done, good and faithful
monster,' and the rest of our voyage would have been happier. Oh!
what a lot of pother a beneficent little bean can make.

"At noon that day Billy announced that it was time to give me a
lobstick; a spruce was selected on a slate island and trimmed to
its proper style, then inscribed:


E. T. SETON
E. A. PREBLE
W. C. LOUTIT
20 July
1907


"Now I was in honour bound to treat, the crew. I had neither the
power nor the wish to give whiskey. Tobacco was already provided,
so I seized the opportunity of smoothing things by announcing a
feast of beans, and this, there was good reason to believe, went
far in the cause of peace.

"At 1.30 for the first time a fair breeze sprang up or rather lazily
got up. Joyfully then we raised our mast and sail. The boys curled
up to sleep, except Beaulieu. He had his fiddle and now he proceeded
to favour us with 'A Life on the Ocean Wave,' 'The Campbells are
Coming,' etc., in a manner worthy of his social position and of
his fiddle. When not in use this aesthetic instrument (in its box)
knocks about on deck or underfoot, among pots and pans, exposed in
all weather; no one seems to fear it will be injured.

"At 7 the usual dead calm was restored. We rowed till we reached
Et-then Island at 8, covering two miles more or 32 in all to-day.
I was unwilling to stop now, but the boys, said they would row all
day Sunday if I would camp here, and then added, 'And if the wind
rises to-night we'll go on.'

"At 10 o'clock I was already in bed for the night, though of course
it was broad daylight. Preble had put out a line of mouse-traps,
when the cry was raised by the Indians now eating their 7th meal:
Chim-pal-le! Hurra! Chilla quee!' ('Sailing wind! Hurra, boys!').

"The camp was all made, but after such a long calm a sailing wind
was too good to miss. In 10 minutes every tent was torn down and
bundled into the boat. At 10.10 we pulled out under a fine promising
breeze; but alas! for its promise! at 10.30 the last vestige of
it died away and we had to use the oars to make the nearest land,
where we tied up at 11 P. M.

"That night old Weeso said to me, through Billy, the interpreter:
'To-morrow is Sunday, therefore he would like to have a prayer-meeting
after breakfast.'

"'Tell him,' I said, 'that I quite approve of his prayer-meeting,
but also it must be understood that if the good Lord sends us a
sailing wind in the morning that is His way of letting us know we
should sail.'

"This sounded so logical that Weeso meekly said, 'All right.'

"Sure enough, the morning dawned with a wind and we got away after
the regular sullen grumbling. About 10.20 the usual glassy calm set
in and Weeso asked me for a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote
something in Chipewyan on the sheet I gave, then returned the pencil
and resumed his pilotic stare at the horizon, for his post was at
the rudder. At length he rolled the paper into a ball, and when I
seemed not observing dropped it behind him overboard.

"'What is the meaning of that, Billy?' I whispered.

"'He's sending a prayer to Jesus for wind.' Half an hour afterward
a strong head-wind sprang up, and Weeso was severely criticised
for not specifying clearly what was wanted.

"There could be no question now about the propriety of landing.
Old Weeso took all the Indians off to a rock, where, bareheaded
and in line, they kneeled facing the east, and for half an hour he
led them in prayer, making often the sign of the cross. The headwind
died away as they came to the boat and again we resumed the weary
rowing, a labour which all were supposed to share, but it did not
need an expert to see that Beaulieu, Snuff, and Terchon merely
dipped their oars and let them drift a while; the real rowing of
that cumbrous old failure of a sailboat was done by Billy Loutit
and Yum Freesay."




CHAPTER XXV

CROSSING THE LAKE--ITS NATURAL HISTORY



All day long here, as on the Nyarling, I busied myself with compass
and sketch-book, making the field notes, sketches, and compass
surveys from which my various maps were compiled; and Preble let no
chance go by of noting the changing bird and plant life that told
us we quit the Canadian fauna at Stony Island and now were in the
Hudsonian zone.

This is the belt of dwindling trees, the last or northmost zone of
the forest, and the spruce trees showed everywhere that they were
living a life-long battle, growing and seeding, but dwarfed by
frost and hardships. But sweet are the uses of adversity, and the
stunted sprucelings were beautified, not uglified, by their troubles.
I never before realised that a whole country could be such a series
of charming little Japanese gardens, with tiny trees, tiny flowers,
tiny fruits, and gorgeous oriental rugs upon the earth and rocks
between.

I photographed one group of trees to illustrate their dainty elfish
dwarfishness, but realising that no one could guess the height
without a scale, I took a second of the same with a small Indian
sitting next it.

Weeso is a kind old soul;  so far as I could see he took no part
in the various seditions, but he was not an inspiring guide. One
afternoon he did something that made a final wreck of my confidence.
A thunderstorm was rumbling in the far east. Black clouds began
travelling toward us; with a line of dark and troubled waters below,
the faint breeze changed around and became a squall. Weeso looked
scared and beckoned to Freesay, who came and took the helm. Nothing
happened.

We were now running along the north shore of Et-then, where are to
be seen the wonderful 1,200-foot cliffs described and figured by
Captain George Back in 1834. They are glorious ramparts, wonderful
in size and in colour, marvellous in their geological display.

Flying, and evidently nesting among the dizzy towers, were a few
Barn-swallows and Phoebe-birds.

This cliff is repeated on Oot-sing-gree-ay, the next island, but
there it is not on the water's edge. It gives a wonderful echo which
the Indians (not to mention myself) played with, in childish fashion.

On Sunday, 21 July, we made a new record, 6 meals and 20 miles.

On July 22 we made only 7 meals and 11 miles and camped in the
narrows Tal-thel-lay. These are a quarter of a mile wide and have
a strong current running westerly. This is the place which Back
says is a famous fishing ground and never freezes over, even in the
hardest winters. Here, as at all points, I noted the Indian names,
not only because they were appropriate, but in hopes of serving the
next traveller. I found an unexpected difficulty in writing them
down, viz.: no matter how I pronounced them, old Weeso and Freesay,
my informants, would say, "Yes, that is right." This, I learned,
was out of politeness; no matter how you mispronounce their words
it is good form to say, "That's it; now you have it exactly."

The Indians were anxious to put out a net overnight here, as they
could count on getting a few Whitefish; so we camped at 5.15. It is
difficult to convey to an outsider the charm of the word "whitefish."
Any northerner will tell you that it is the only fish that is
perfect human food, the only food that man or dog never wearies of,
the only lake food that conveys no disorder no matter how long or
freely it is used. It is so delicious and nourishing that there
is no fish in the world that can even come second to it. It is as
far superior in all food qualities to the finest Salmon or Trout as
a first-prize, gold-medalled, nut-fed thoroughbred Sussex bacon-hog
is to the roughest, toughest, boniest old razor-backed land-pike
that ever ranged the woods of Arkansas.

That night the net yielded 3 Whitefish and 3 Trout. The latter,
being 4 to 8 pounds each, would have been reckoned great prizes
in any other country, but now all attention was on the Whitefish.
They certainly were radiantly white, celestial in color; their
backs were a dull frosted silver, with here and there a small
electric lamp behind the scales to make its jewels sparkle. The
lamps alternated with opals increased on the side; the bellies were
of a blazing mother-of-pearl. It would be hard to imagine a less
imaginative name than "white" fish for such a shining, burning
opalescence. Indian names are usually descriptive, but their name
for this is simply "The Fish." All others are mere dilutes and cheap
imitations, but the Coregonus is at all times and par excellence
"The Fish."

Nevertheless, in looking at it I could not help feeling that this
is the fat swine, or the beef Durham of its kind. The head, gills,
fins, tail, vital organs and bones all were reduced to a minimum
and the meat parts enlarged and solidified, as though they were
the product of ages of careful breeding by man to produce a perfect
food fish, a breeding that has been crowned with the crown of
absolute success.

The Indians know, for the best of reasons, the just value of every
native food. When Rabbits abound they live on them but do not
prosper; they call it "starving on rabbits." When Caribou meat is
plenty they eat it, but crave flour. When Moose is at hand they
eat it, and are strong. When Jack-fish, Sucker, Conies, and Trout
are there, they take them as a variant; but on Whitefish, as on
Moose, they can live with out loathing, and be strong. The Indian
who has his scaffold hung with Whitefish when winter comes,  is
accounted rich.

"And what," says the pessimist, "is the fly in all this precious
ointment?" Alasl It is not a game fish; it will not take bait,
spoon, or fly, and its finest properties vanish in a few hours
after capture.

The Whitefish served in the marble palaces of other lands is as
mere dish-water to champagne, when compared with the three times
purified and ten times intensified dazzling silver Coregonus as
it is landed on the bleak shores of those far-away icy lakes. So
I could not say 'No' to the Indian boys when they wanted to wait
here, the last point at which they could be sure of a catch.

That night (22d July) five canoes and two York boats of Indians
landed at the narrows. These were Dogribs of Chief Vital's band;
all told they numbered about thirty men, women, and children; with
them were twenty-odd dogs, which immediately began to make trouble.
When one is in Texas the topic of conversation is, "How are the
cattle?" in the Klondike, "How is your claim panning out?" and in
New York, "How are you getting on with your novel?" On Great Slave
Lake you say, "Where are the Caribou?" The Indians could not tell;
they had seen none for weeks, but there was still much ice in the
east end of the lake which kept them from investigating. They had
plenty of dried Caribou meat but were out of tea and tobacco. I had
come prepared for this sort of situation, and soon we had a fine
stock of dried venison.

These were the Indians whose abandoned dogs made so much trouble
for us in the days that followed.

At 4 P. M. of 23d of July we were stopped by a long narrow floe of
broken ice. Without consulting me the crew made for the shore.

It seemed they were full of fears: "What if they should get caught
in that floe, and drift around for days? What if a wind should
arise (it had been glassy calm for a week)? What if they could',
not get back?" etc., etc.

Preble and I climbed a hill for a view. The floe was but half a
mile wide, very loose, with frequent lanes.

"Preble, is there any reason why we should not push through this
floe using poles to move the cakes?"

"None whatever."

On descending, however, I found the boys preparing to camp for "a
couple of days," while the ice melted or drifted away somewhere.

So I said, "You get right into this boat now and push off; we can
easily work our way through." They made no reply, simply looked
sulkier than ever, and proceeded to start a fire for meal No. 5.

"Weeso," I said, "get into your place and tell your men to follow."

The old man looked worried and did nothing, He wanted to do right,
but he was in awe of his crew.

Then did I remember how John MacDonald settled the rebellion on
the river.

"Get in there," I said to Preble and Billy. "Come on, Weeso." We
four jumped into the boat and proceeded to push off with all the
supplies.

Authorities differ as to the time it took for the crew to make up
their minds. Two seconds and eleven seconds are perhaps the extremes
of estimate. They came jumping aboard as fast as they could.

We attacked the floe, each with a lodge-pole; that is, Billy and
Preble did in the bow, while Freesay and I did at the rear; and
in thirty-five minutes we had pushed through and were sailing the
open sea.

The next day we had the same scene repeated with less intensity,
in this case because Freesay sided with me. What would I not give
to have had a crew of white men. A couple of stout Norwegian sailors
would have done far better than this whole outfit of reds.

When we stopped for supper No. 1 a tiny thimbleful of down on two
pink matches ran past, and at once the mother, a Peetweet, came
running in distress to save her young. The brave Beaulieu fearlessly
seized a big stick and ran to kill the little one. I shouted out,
"Stop that," in tones that implied that I owned the heaven, the
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, but could not have saved
the downling had it not leaped into the water and dived out of
sight. It came up two feet away and swam to a rock of safety, where
it bobbed its latter end toward its adversaries and the open sea
in turn.

I never before knew that they could dive.

About eight o'clock we began to look for a good place to camp and
make meal No. 6. But the islands where usually we found refuge
from the dogs were without wood, and the shores were too rugged
and steep or had no dry timber, so we kept going on. After trying
one or two places the Indians said it was only a mile to Indian
Mountain River (Der-sheth Tessy), where was a camp of their friends.
I was always glad of a reason for pushing on, so away we went. My
crew seized their rifles and fired to let their village know we were
coming. The camp came quickly into view, and volley after volley
was fired and returned.

These Indians are extremely poor and the shots cost 5 and 6 cents
each. So this demonstration totalled up about $2.00.

As we drew near the village of lodges the populace lined up on shore,
and then our boys whispered, "Some white men." What a peculiar
thrill it gave me! I had seen nothing but Indians along the route
so far and expected nothing else. But here were some of my own
people, folk with whom I could talk. They proved to be my American
friend from Smith Landing, he whose hand I had lanced, and his
companion, a young Englishman, who was here with him prospecting
for gold and copper. "I'm all right now," he said, and, held up
the hand with my mark on it, and our greeting was that of white
men meeting among strangers in a far foreign land.

As soon as we were ashore a number of Indians came to offer meat
for tobacco. They seemed a lot of tobacco-maniacs. "Tzel-twee" at
any price they must have. Food they could do without for a long
time, but life without smoke was intolerable; and they offered their
whole dried product of two Caribou, concentrated, nourishing food
enough to last a family many days, in exchange for half a pound of
nasty stinking, poisonous tobacco.

Two weeks hence, they say, these hills will be alive with Caribou;
alas! for them, it proved a wholly erroneous forecast.

Y.'s guide is Sousi King Beaulieu (for pedigree, see Warburton
Pike); he knows all this country well and gave us much information
about the route. He says that this year the Caribou cows went north
as usual, but the bulls did not. The season was so late they did
not think it worth while; they are abundant yet at Artillery Lake.

He recognised me as the medicine man, and took an early opportunity
of telling me what a pain he had. Just where, he was not sure,
but it was hard to bear; he would like some sort of a pain-killer.
Evidently he craved a general exhilarator.  Next morning we got
away at 7 A. M. after the usual painful scene about getting up in
the middle of the night, which was absurd, as there was no night.

Next afternoon we passed the Great White Fall at the mouth of Hoar
Frost River; the Indians call it Dezza Kya. If this is the Beverly
Falls of Back, his illustrator was without information; the published
picture bears not the slightest resemblance to it.

At three in the afternoon of July 27th, the twelfth day after we
had set out on the "three or four day run" from Resolution, this
exasperating and seemingly interminable voyage really did end, and
we thankfully beached our York boat at the famous lobstick that
marks the landing of Pike's Portage.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE LYNX AT BAY



One of the few rewarding episodes of this voyage took place on the
last morning, July 27. We were half a mile from Charleston Harbour
when one of the Indians said "Cheesay" (Lynx) and pointed to the
south shore. There, on a bare point a quarter mile away, we saw a
large Lynx walking quietly along. Every oar was dropped and every
rifle seized, of course, to repeat the same old scene; probably
it would have made no difference to the Lynx, but I called out:
"Hold on there! I'm going after that Cheesay."

Calling my two reliables, Preble and Billy, we set out in the canoe,
armed, respectively, with a shotgun, a club, and a camera.

When we landed the Lynx was gone. We hastily made a skirmishing line
in the wood where the point joined the mainland, but saw no sign of
him, so concluded that he must be hiding on the point. Billy took
the right shore, Preble the left, I kept the middle. Then we marched
toward the point but saw nothing. There were no bushes except a low
thicket of spruce, some 20 feet across and 3 or 4 feet high. This
was too dense to penetrate standing, so I lay down on my breast
and proceeded to crawl in under the low boughs. I had not gone six
feet before a savage growl warned me back, and there, just ahead,
crouched the Lynx. He glared angrily, then rose up, and I saw, with
a little shock, that he had been crouching on the body of another
Lynx, eating it. Photography was impossible there, so I took a
stick and poked at him; he growled, struck at the stick, but went
out, then dashed across the open for the woods. As he went I got
photograph No. 1. Now I saw the incredible wonder I had heard of--a
good runner can outrun a Lynx. Preble was a sprinter, and before the
timber 200 yards off was reached that Lynx was headed and turned;
and Preble and Billy were driving him back into my studio. He made
several dashes to escape, but was out-manoeuvred and driven onto
the far point, where he was really between the devils and the deep
sea. Here he faced about at bay, growling furiously, thumping his
little bobtail from side to side, and pretending he was going to
spring on us. I took photo No. 2 at 25 yards. He certainly did look
very fierce, but I thought I knew the creature, as well as the men
who were backing me. I retired, put a new film in place, and said:

"Now, Preble, I'm going to walk up to that Lynx and get a close
photo. If he jumps for me, and he may, there is nothing can save
my beauty but you and that gun."

Preble with characteristic loquacity says, "Go ahead."

Then I stopped and began slowly approaching the desperate creature
we held at bay. His eyes were glaring green, his ears were back,
his small bobtail kept twitching from side to side, and his growls
grew harder and hissier, as I neared him. At 15 feet he gathered his
legs under him as for a spring, and I pressed the button getting,
No. 3.

Then did the demon of ambition enter into my heart and lead me
into peril. That Lynx at bay was starving and desperate. He might
spring at me, but I believed that if he did he never would reach
me alive. I knew my man--this nerved me--and I said to him: "I'm
not satisfied; I want him to fill the finder. Are you ready?"

"Yep."

So I crouched lower and came still nearer, and at 12 feet made No.
4. For some strange reason, now the Lynx seemed less angry than he
had been.

"He didn't fill the finder; I'll try again," was my next. Then
on my knees I crawled up, watching the finder till it was full of
Lynx. I glanced at the beast; he was but 8 feet away. I focused
and fired.

And now, oh, wonder! that Lynx no longer seemed annoyed; he had
ceased growling and simply looked bored.

Seeing it was over, Preble says, "Now where does he go? To the
Museum?"

"No, indeed!" was the reply. "He surely has earned his keep; turn
him loose. It's back to the woods for him." We stood aside; he saw
his chance and dashed for the tall timber. As he went I fired the
last film, getting No. 6; and so far as I know that Lynx is alive
and well and going yet.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE LAST OF THAT INDIAN CREW



Carved on the lobstick of the Landing were many names famous in
the annals of this region, Pike, Maltern, McKinley, Munn, Tyrrel
among them. All about were evidences of an ancient and modern
camp--lodge poles ready for the covers, relics and wrecks of all
sorts, fragments of canoes and sleds, and the inevitable stray
Indian dog.

First we made a meal, of course; then I explained to the crew that
I wanted all the stuff carried over the portage, 31 miles, to the
first lake. At once there was a row; I was used to that. There had
been a row every morning over getting up, and one or two each day
about other details. Now the evil face of Beaulieu showed that his
tongue was at work again. But I knew my lesson.

"You were brought to man the boat and bring my stuff over this
portage. So do it and start right now."

They started 3 1/4 miles with heavy loads, very heavy labour I must
admit, back then in four hours to make another meal, and camp.

Next morning another row before they would get up and take each
another load. But canoe and everything were over by noon. And then
came the final scene.

In all the quarrels and mutinies, old Weeso had been faithful to
me. Freesay had said little or nothing, and had always worked well
and cheerfully. Weeso was old and weak, Freesay young and strong,
and therefore he was the one for our canoe. I decided it would pay
to subsidise Weeso to resign in favour of the younger man. But, to
be sure, first asked Freesay if he would like to come with me to
the land of the Musk-ox. His answer was short and final, "Yes,"
but he could not, as his uncle had told him not to go beyond this
portage. That settled it. The childlike obedience to their elders
is admirable, but embarrassing at times.

So Weeso went after all, and we got very well acquainted on that
long trip. He was a nice old chap. He always meant well; grinned
so happily, when he was praised, and looked so glum when he was
scolded. There was little of the latter to do; so far as he knew,
he did his best, and it is a pleasure now to conjure up his face
and ways. His cheery voice, at my tent door every morning, was the
signal that Billy had the breakfast within ten minutes of ready.

"Okimow, To" (Chief, here is water), he would say as he set down
the water for my bath and wondered what in the name of common sense
should make the Okimow need washing every morning. He himself was
of a cleaner kind, having needed no bath during the whole term of
our acquaintance.

There were two peculiarities of the old man that should make him
a good guide for the next party going northward. First, he never
forgot a place once he had been there, and could afterward go to
it direct from any other place. Second, he had the most wonderful
nose for firewood; no keen-eyed raven or starving wolf could go more
surely to a marrow-bone in cache, than could Weeso to the little
sticks in far away hollows or granite clefts. Again and again,
when we landed on the level or rocky shore and all hands set out
to pick up the few pencil-thick stems of creeping birch, roots
of annual plants, or wisps of grass to boil the kettle, old Weeso
would wander off by himself and in five minutes return with an
armful of the most amazingly acceptable firewood conjured out of
the absolutely timberless, unpromising waste. I never yet saw the
camp where he could not find wood. So he proved good stuff; I was
glad we had brought him along.

And I was equally glad now to say good-bye to the rest of the crew.
I gave them provisions for a week, added a boiling of beans, and
finally the wonderful paper in which I stated the days they had
worked for me, and the kind of service they had rendered, commended
Freesay, and told the truth about Beaulieu.

"Dat paper tell about me," said that worthy suspiciously.

"Yes," I said, "and about the others; and it tells Harding to pay
you as agreed."

We all shook hands and parted. I have not seen them since, nor do
I wish to meet any of them again, except Freesay.

My advice to the next traveller would be: get white men for the trip
and one Indian for guide. When alone they are manageable, and some
of them, as seen already, are quite satisfactory, but the more of
them the worse. They combine, as Pike says, the meanest qualities
of a savage and an unscrupulous moneylender. The worst one in the
crowd seems most readily followed by the others.




CHAPTER XXVIII

GEOLOGICAL FORCES AT WORK



It seems to me that never before have I seen the geological forces
of nature so obviously at work. Elsewhere I have seen great valleys,
cliffs, islands, etc., held on good evidence to be the results of
such and such powers formerly very active; but here on the Athabaska
I saw daily evidence of these powers in full blast, ripping, tearing
reconstructing, while we looked on.

All the way down the river we saw the process of undermining the
bank, tearing down the trees to whirl them again on distant northern
shores, thus widening the river channel until too wide for its normal
flood, which in time, drops into a deeper restricted channel, in
the wide summer waste of gravel and sand.

Ten thousand landslides take place every spring, contributing
their tons of mud to the millions that the river is deporting to
the broad catch basins called the Athabaska and Great Slave Lakes.

Many a tree has happened to stand on the very crack that is the
upmost limit of the slide and has in consequence been ripped in
two.

Many an island is wiped out and many a one made in these annual
floods. Again and again we saw the evidence of some island, continued
long enough to raise a spruce forest, suddenly receive a 6-foot
contribution from its erratic mother; so the trees were buried to
the arm-pits. Many times I saw where some frightful jam of ice had
planed off all the trees; then a deep overwhelming layer of mud
had buried the stumps and grown in time a new spruce forest. Now
the mighty erratic river was tearing all this work away again,
exposing all its history.

In the delta of the Slave, near Fort Resolution, we saw the plan of
delta work. Millions of tons of mud poured into the deep translucent
lake have filled it for miles, so that it is scarcely deep enough
to float a canoe; thousands of huge trees, stolen from the upper
forest, are here stranded as wing-dams that check the current and
hold more mud. Rushes grow on this and catch more mud. Then the
willows bind it more, and the sawing down of the outlet into the
Mackenzie results in all this mud being left dry land.

This is the process that has made all the lowlands at the mouth
of Great Slave and Athabaska Rivers. And the lines of tree trunks
to-day, preparing for the next constructive annexation of the lake,
are so regular that one's first thought is that this is the work
of man. But these are things that my sketches and photographs will
show better than words.

When later we got onto the treeless Barrens or Tundra, the process
was equally evident, though at this time dormant, and the chief
agent was not running water, but the giant Jack Frost.




CHAPTER XXIX

PIKE'S PORTAGE



Part of my plan was to leave a provision cache every hundred
miles, with enough food to carry us 200 miles, and thus cover the
possibility of considerable loss. I had left supplies at Chipewyan,
Smith, and Resolution, but these were settlements; now we were
pushing off into the absolute wilderness, where it was unlikely
we should see any human beings but ourselves. Now, indeed, we
were facing all primitive conditions. Other travellers have made
similar plans for food stores, but there are three deadly enemies
to a cache--weather, ravens, and wolverines., I was prepared for
all three. Water-proof leatheroid cases were to turn the storm,
dancing tins and lines will scare the ravens, and each cache tree
was made unclimbable to Wolverines by the addition of a necklace of
charms in the form of large fish-hooks, all nailed on with points
downward. This idea, borrowed from, Tyrrell, has always proved a
success; and not one of our caches was touched or injured.

Tyrrell has done much for this region; his name will ever be
linked with its geography and history. His map of the portage was
a godsend, for now we found that our guide had been here only once,
and that when he was a child, with many resultant lapses of memory
and doubts about the trail. My only wonder was that he remembered
as much as he did.

Here we had a sudden and unexpected onset of black flies; they
appeared for the first time in numbers, and attacked us with a
ferocity that made the mosquitoes seem like a lot of baby butterflies
in comparison. However, much as we may dislike the latter, they at
least do not poison us or convey disease (as yet), and are repelled
by thick clothing. The black flies attack us like some awful
pestilence walking in darkness, crawling in and forcing themselves
under our clothing, stinging and poisoning as they go. They are,
of course, worst near the openings in our armour, that is necks,
wrists, and ankles. Soon each of us had a neck like an old fighting
bull walrus; enormously swollen, corrugated with bloats and wrinkles,
blotched, bumpy, and bloody, as disgusting as it was painful. All
too closely it simulated the ravages of some frightful disease, and
for a night or two the torture of this itching fire kept me from
sleeping. Three days, fortunately, ended the black fly reign,
and left us with a deeper sympathy for the poor Egyptians who on
account of their own or some other bodies' sins were the victims
of "plagues of flies."

But there was something in the camp that amply offset these annoyances;
this was a spirit of kindness and confidence. Old Weeso was smiling
and happy, ready at all times to do his best; his blundering about
the way was not surprising, all things considered, but his mistakes
did not matter, since I had Tyrrell's admirable maps. Billy, sturdy,
strong, reliable, never needed to be called twice in the morning.
No matter what the hour, he was up at once and cooking the breakfast
in the best of style, for an A 1 cook he was. And when it came to
the portages he would shoulder his 200 or 250 pounds each time.
Preble combined the mental force of the educated white man with
the brawn of the savage, and although not supposed to do it, he
took the same sort of loads as Billy did. Mine, for the best of
reasons, were small, and consisted chiefly of the guns, cameras,
and breakables, or occasionally, while they were transporting the
heavy stuff, I acted as cook. But all were literally and figuratively
in the same boat, all paddled all day, ate the same food worked
the same hours, and imbued with the same spirit were eager to reach
the same far goal. From this on the trip was ideal.

We were 3 1/2 days covering the 8 small lakes and 9 portages (30
miles) that lie between the two great highways, Great Slave Lake
and Artillery Lake; and camped on the shore of the latter on the
night of July 31.

Two of these 9 lakes had not been named by the original explorers.
I therefore exercised my privilege and named them, respectively,
"Loutit" and "Weeso," in honour of my men.

The country here is cut up on every side with caribou trails; deep
worn like the buffalo trails on the plains, with occasional horns
and bones; these, however, are not so plentiful as were the relics
of the Buffalo. This, it proved, was because the Caribou go far
north at horn-dropping time, and they have practically no bones
that the Wolves cannot crush with their teeth.

Although old tracks were myriad-many, there were no new ones. Weeso
said, however, "In about four days the shores of this lake will
be alive with Caribou." It will show the erratic nature of these
animals when I say that the old man was all wrong; they did not
appear there in numbers until many weeks later, probably not for
two months.

Here, at the foot of Artillery Lake, we were near the last of the
timber, and, strange to say, we found some trees of remarkably large
growth. One, a tamarac, was the largest and last seen; the other,
a spruce--Pike's Lobstick--was 55 inches in girth, 1 foot from the
ground.

At this camp Weeso complained that he was feeling very sick; had
pains in his back. I could not make out what was the matter with
him, but Billy said sagaciously, "I think if you give him any kind
of a pill he will be all right. It doesn't matter what, so long as
it's a pill."

Of course "cathartic" is good blind play in case of doubt. He got
a big, fierce rhubarb, and all went well.




CHAPTER XXX

CARIBOU-LAND AT LAST



On the morning of August 1 we launched on Artillery Lake, feeling,
for the tenth time, that now we really were on the crowning stretch of
our journey, that at last we were entering the land of the Caribou.

Over the deep, tranquil waters of the lake we went, scanning the
painted shores with their dwindling remnants of forest. There is
something inspiring about the profundity of transparency in these
lakes, where they are 15 feet deep their bottoms are no more
obscured than in an ordinary eastern brook at 6 inches. On looking
down into the far-below world, one gets the sensation of flight as
one skims overhead in the swift canoe. And how swift that elegant
canoe was in a clear run I was only now finding out. All my
previous estimates had been too low. Here I had the absolute gauge
of Tyrrell's maps and found that we four paddling could send her,
not 3 1/2, but 4 1/2 or 5 miles an hour, with a possibility of 6
when we made an effort. As we spun along the south-east coast of
the lake, the country grew less rugged; the continuous steep granite
hills were replaced by lower buttes with long grassy plains between;
and as I took them in, I marvelled at their name--the Barrens; bare
of trees, yes, but the plains were covered with rich, rank grass,
more like New England meadows. There were stretches where the herbage
was rank as on the Indiana prairies, and the average pasture of
the bleaker parts was better than the best of central Wyoming. A
cattleman of the West would think himself made if he could be sure
of such pastures on his range, yet these are the Barren Grounds.

At 3 we passed the splendid landmark of Beaver Lodge Mountain. Its
rosy-red granite cliffs contrast wonderfully with its emerald cap
of verdant grass and mosses, that cover it in tropical luxuriance,
and the rippling lake about it was of Mediterranean hues.

We covered the last 9 miles in 1 hour and 53 minutes, passed the
deserted Indian village, and landed at Last Woods by 8.30 P. M.

The edge of the timber is the dividing line between the Hudsonian
and the Arctic zones, It is the beginning of the country we had
come to see; we were now in the land of the Caribou.

At this point we were prepared to spend several days, leave a cache,
gather a bundle of choice firewood, then enter on the treeless
plains.

That night it stormed; all were tired; there was no reason to bestir
ourselves; it was 10 when we arose. Half an hour later Billy came
to my tent and said, "Mr. Seton, here's some deer." I rushed to
the door, and there, with my own eyes, I saw on a ridge a mile away
four great, Caribou standing against the sky.

We made for a near hill and met Preble returning; he also had seen
them. From a higher view-point the 4 proved part of a band of 120.

Then other bands came in view, 16, 61, 3, 200, and so on; each valley
had a scattering few, all travelling slowly southward or standing
to enjoy the cool breeze that ended the torment of the flies. About
1,000 were in sight. These were my first Caribou, the first fruits
of 3,000 miles of travel.

Weeso got greatly excited; these were the forerunners of the vast
herd. He said, "Plenty Caribou now," and grinned like a happy child.

I went in one direction, taking only my camera. At least 20 Caribou
trotted within 50 feet of me.

Billy and Weeso took their rifles intent on venison, but the Caribou
avoided them and 6 or 8 shots were heard before they got a young
buck.

All that day I revelled in Caribou, no enormous herds but always
a few in sight.

The next day Weeso and I went to the top ridge eastward. He with
rifle, I with camera. He has a vague idea of the camera's use, but
told Billy privately that "the rifle was much better for Caribou."
He could not understand why I should restrain him from blazing away
as long as the ammunition held out. "Didn't we come to shoot?" But
he was amenable to discipline, and did as I wished when he understood.

Now on the top of that windy ridge I sat with this copper-coloured
child of the spruce woods, to watch these cattle of the plains.

The Caribou is a travelsome beast, always in a hurry, going against
the wind. When the wind is west, all travel west; when it veers,
they veer. Now the wind was northerly, and all were going north,
not walking, not galloping--the Caribou rarely gallops, and then
only for a moment or two; his fast gait is a steady trot a 10-mile
gait, making with stops about 6 miles an hour. But they are ever
on the move; when you see a Caribou that does not move, you know
at once it is not a Caribou; it's a rock.

We sat down on the hill at 3. In a few minutes a cow Caribou came
trotting from the south, caught the wind at 50 yards, and dashed
away.

In 5 minutes another, in 20 minutes a young buck, in 20 minutes
more a big buck, in 10 minutes a great herd of about 500 appeared
in the south. They came along at full trot, lined to pass us on the
southeast. At half a mile they struck our scent and all recoiled as
though we were among them. They scattered in alarm, rushed south
again, then, gathered in solid body, came on as before, again
to spring back and scatter as they caught the taint of man. After
much and various running, scattering, and massing, they once more
charged the fearsome odour and went right through it. Now they
passed at 500 yards and gave the chance for a far camera shot.

The sound of their trampling was heard a long way off--half a
mile--but at 300 yards I could not distinguish the clicking of the
feet, whereas this clicking was very plainly to be heard from the
band that passed within 50 yards of me in the morning.

They snort a good deal and grunt a little, and, notwithstanding
their continual haste, I noticed that from time to time one or two
would lie down, but at once jump up and rush on when they found
they were being left behind. Many more single deer came that day,
but no more large herds.

About 4.30 a fawn of this year (2 1/2 or 3 months) came rushing
up from the north, all alone. It charged up a hill for 200 yards,
then changed its mind and charged down again, then raced to a bunch
of tempting herbage, cropped it hastily, dashed to a knoll, left
at an angle, darted toward us till within 40 yards, then dropped
into a thick bed of grass, where it lay as though it had unlimited
time.

I took one photograph, and as I crawled to get one nearer, a shot
passed over my head, and the merry cackle told me that Weeso had
yielded to temptation and had 'collected' that fawn.

A young buck now came trotting and grunting toward us till within
16 paces, which proved too much for Weeso, who then and there,
in spite of repeated recent orders, started him on the first step
toward my museum collection.

I scolded him angrily, and he looked glum and unhappy, like a naughty
little boy caught in some indiscretion which he cannot understand.
He said nothing to me then, but later complained to Billy, asking,
"What did we come for?"

Next morning at dawn I dreamed I was back in New York and that a
couple of cats were wailing under my bedroom window. Their noise
increased so that I awoke, and then I heard unaccountable caterwauls.
They were very loud and near, at least one of the creatures was. At
length I got up to see. Here on the lake a few yards from the tent
was a loon swimming about, minutely inspecting the tent and uttering
at intervals deep cat-like mews in expression of his curiosity.

The south wind had blown for some days before we arrived, and the
result was to fill the country with Caribou coming from the north.
The day after we came, the north wind set in, and continued for
three days, so that soon there was not a Caribou to be found in
the region.

In the afternoon I went up the hill to where Weeso left the
offal of his deer. A large yellowish animal was there feeding. It
disappeared over a rock and I could get no second view of it. It
may have been a wolf, as I saw a fresh wolf trail near; I did not,
however, see the animal's tail.

In the evening Preble and I went again, and again the creature was
there, but disappeared as mysteriously as before when we were 200
yards away. Where it went we could not guess. The country was open
and we scoured it with eye and glass, but saw nothing more of the
prowler. It seemed to be a young Arctic wolf, yellowish white in
colour, but tailless,

Next day, at noon Preble and Billy returned bearing the illusive
visitor; it was a large Lynx. It was very thin and yet, after
bleeding, weighed 22 pounds. But why was it so far from the forest,
20 miles or more, and a couple of miles from this little grove that
formed the last woods?

This is another evidence of the straits the Lynxes are put to for
food, in this year of famine.




CHAPTER XXXI

GOOD-BYE TO THE WOODS



The last woods is a wonderfully interesting biological point or
line; this ultimate arm of the forest does not die away gradually
with uncertain edges and in steadily dwindling trees. The latter
have sent their stoutest champions to the front, or produced, as
by a final effort, some giants for the line of battle. And that
line, with its sentinels, is so marked that one can stand with
a foot on the territory of each combatant, or, as scientists call
them, the Arctic Region and the cold Temperate.

And each of the embattled kings, Jack-frost and Sombre-pine, has
his children in abundance to possess the land as he wins it. Right
up to the skirmish line are they.

The low thickets of the woods are swarming with Tree-sparrows,
Redpolls, Robins, Hooded Sparrows, and the bare plains, a few
yards away, are peopled and vocal with birds to whom a bush is an
abomination. Lap-longspur, Snowbird, Shorelarks, and Pipits are
here soaring and singing, or among the barren rocks are Ptarmigan
in garments that are painted in the patterns of their rocks.

There is one sombre fowl of ampler wing that knows no line--is at
home in the open or in the woods. His sonorous voice has a human
sound that is uncanny; his form is visible afar in the desert and
sinister as a gibbet; his plumage fits in with nothing but the
night, which he does not love. This evil genius of the land is the
Raven of the north. Its numbers increased as we reached the Barrens,
and the morning after the first Caribou was killed, no less than
28 were assembled at its offal.

An even more interesting bird of the woods is the Hooded Sparrow,
interesting because so little known.

Here I found it on its breeding-grounds, a little late for its
vernal song, but in September we heard its autumnal renewal like
the notes of its kinsmen, White-throat and White-crowned Sparrows,
but with less whistling, and more trilled. In all the woods of
the Hudsonian Zone we found it evidently at home. But here I was
privileged to find the first nest of the species known to science.
The victory was robbed of its crown, through the nest having
fledglings instead of eggs, but still it was the ample reward of
hours of search.

Of course it was on the ground, in the moss and creeping plants,
under some bushes of dwarf birch, screened by spruces. The structure
closely resembled that of the Whitethroat was lined with grass
and fibrous roots; no down, feathers, or fur were observable. The
young numbered four.

The last woods was the limit of other interesting creatures--the
Ants. Wherever one looks on the ground, in a high, dry place,
throughout the forest country, from Athabaska Landing northward
along our route, there is to be seen at least one Ant to the square
foot, usually several. Three kinds seem common--one red-bodied,
another a black one with brown thorax, and a third very small and
all black. They seem to live chiefly in hollow logs and stumps,
but are found also on marshes, where their hills are occasionally
so numerous as to form dry bridges across.

I made many notes on the growth of timber here and all along the
route; and for comparison will begin at the very beging.

In March, 1907, at my home in Connecticut, I cut down an oak tree
(Q. palustris) that was 110 feet high, 32 inches in diameter, and
yet had only 76 rings of annual growth.

In the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, where I camped in September,
1902, a yellow pine 6 feet 6 inches high was 51 inches in circumference
at base. It had 14 rings and 14 whorls of branches corresponding
exactly with the rings.

At the same place I measured a balsam fir--84 feet high, 15 inches
in diameter at 32 inches from the ground. It had 52 annual rings
and 50 or possibly 52 whorls of branches. The most vigorous upward
growth of the trunk corresponded exactly with the largest growth
of wood in the stump. Thus ring No. 33 was 3/8 inch wide and whorl
No. 33 had over 2 feet of growth, below it on the trunk were others
which had but 6 inches.

On the stump most growth was on north-east side; there it was
9 inches, from pith to bark next on east 8 1/2 inches, on south 8
inches, north 6 1/2 inches, west 6 1/2 inches, least on north-west
side, 6 inches. The most light in this case came from the north-east.
This was in the land of mighty timber.

On Great Slave River, the higher latitude is offset by lower
altitude, and on June 2, 1907, while among the tall white spruce
trees I measured one of average size--118 feet high, 11 feet 2 inches
in girth a foot from the ground (3 feet 6 1/2 inches in diameter),
and many black poplars nearly as tall were 9 feet in girth.

But the stunting effect of the short summer became marked as we
went northward. At Fort Smith, June 20, I cut down a jackpine that
was 12 feet high, 1 inch in diameter, with 23 annual rings at the
bottom; 6 feet up it had 12 rings and 20 whorls. In all it appeared
to have 43 whorls, which is puzzling. Of these 20 were in the lower
part. This tree grew in dense shade.