CHAPTER X.

THE EASTWARD MARCH.

On August 30th we broke camp on the George or Barren-ground River, with our hearts and minds set on our journey Eastward Ho! We had stayed on the George to the last possible moment, and when we finally started on the return journey we had the following provisions left. There was a little over two pounds of flour, three-quarters of a pound of bacon, a few ounces of tea, three soup tablets, and enough deer’s meat for a light lunch. At Camp No. 4, Sandy Camp, a five-pound slab of bacon was _cached_; a day beyond that, again, at Camp 3, lay a little chocolate food, the balance of a box of raisins, and twenty pounds of flour. On this morning, however, our foremost aim was to kill a deer.

We were located well down towards the south end of Indian House Lake, at a point where the current was very perceptible. It would have taken only one full day’s march to regain the route by which we had travelled when coming into the country. But all three of us disliked the idea of retracing our footsteps, though, in view of the extreme shortage of provisions, that would perhaps have been the wiser course, for, though fifty-five miles straight does not signify, they may, on the Labrador, only too easily tail out into a hundred. It was impossible to foresee what obstacles a new route might not present. We knew that there was a series of large lakes under the Height of Land, and, supposing we happened to strike one of these in the centre, the walk around it might add days to the length of our journey. Besides, this fifty-five miles included a climb up to the great central plateau, which rises to over two thousand feet above sea level about this region, and afterwards the crossing it to Sandy Camp; and at that height our progress might be seriously impeded by the mists, which we knew, by experience, often lie for days together upon the vast tableland. Our provisions, however, could only be stretched to provide us with half-a-dozen rather unsatisfying meals, and we could no longer count with any degree of likelihood upon shooting a caribou, as even the stragglers of the migration seemed to have passed.

Nevertheless, as I have said, we were most unwilling to go back over our old trail, and finally we decided to take our chance and strike east and then north-east, so as to cut our old route at or about Doe Camp. To our half-dozen certain meals we hoped to be able to add with the rod or the ·22 rifle, for there appeared to be every chance of our catching _namaycush_ and shooting ptarmigan.

We got away upon our return march in good time, but unluckily had not gone very far when, among some tangled alders and stones, I again wrenched my ankle, which had not grown very strong since my original accident with it. This was a tiresome beginning, but by the aid of a stick to lean on I managed to carry my pack, though over bad ground I was much the slowest sailer in our fleet.

After a portage of more than an hour we paused on a ridge and looked back on Indian House Lake, stretching far beneath us. We could still discern upon the promontories the skeleton Indian teepees from which the lake received its name. The slopes and the hollows between were soft with woodland, spruce, birch, juniper, willow, and alder, the latter making green the shores of the lake to the margin of the blue water. On the farther side we could see towering up the first of the great series of rolling ridges which divide the George from the Whale River, sparsely sprinkled with black spruce; to the south our view was bounded by a rocky bluff, but to the north it extended over twenty miles till the great water lost itself in the foot-hills of the Bridgman Mountains.

Then we turned from the fertile valley to look at the route we were about to travel. A huge ridge struck upwards into the blue of the sky, for it was a blue day with frequent _dwis_ or showers. The flanks of the ridge were covered with reindeer moss, over which lay the usual heavy scattering of quartzite boulders. Across this country we journeyed until mid-day, when we made a halt near a stunted clump of spruce, blown crooked by the winds. Beyond these, no sign of wood showed except dwarf birch. Here we ate a pound of our flour and a thick slice of bacon each, making up our minds that we would go hungry at night unless we chanced to kill something. Then till late in the evening, we marched over some of the roughest ground we had yet encountered. Once only we saw game, in the shape of five ptarmigan, which to our chagrin would not permit the eager Hardy to approach within a hundred yards, and consequently flew away without offering a shot.

[Illustration: The Last Spruce.]

[Illustration: A “Raised Beach” in the George Valley.]

At five o’clock, descending a hill, we saw below us some sandy ridges by a distant lake, and there we decided to make our hungry camp. While we were still a mile from the lake, which was turning to gold in the evening light, I suddenly saw something silhouetted against the glow, and as I watched this something moved against the background.

“I see either a man or a deer,” I said.

In an instant the apathy of marching had fallen from my companions and they were all keenness. In that upland air our hunger was great indeed, and the prospect of a supperless bed had weighted our weariness.

“I see it too; it is a deer!” said Porter in great excitement.

The animal in the meantime had turned broadside on, and had lost the foreshortened outline which makes a deer standing full face in the distance and against the skyline look not unlike the figure of a man. Hardy had lost no time in getting out his glass, and soon found the deer.

“It has horns,” he said. “I think it is a stag.”

A vision of fat kidneys spluttering in the pan flashed through my mind. Hardy handed me the glass just as the deer, moving parallel to us along the side of the lake, passed behind a rising dune out of our sight. On this I hastily threw down my pack, and, seizing my rifle, ran to try and cut the animal off. Hardy and Porter remained where they were, lying hungrily anxious upon the hill-side.

As the wind was blowing from the nearer side of the lake, I thought it wise to make for the opposite end of it, as, if he did not alter his course, I should then be able to come directly on the stag. If I tried to approach him from any other point, he might by a chance turn and get to windward of me; and that I knew would drive him clean off the face of the country-side, for the Labrador caribou, once he catches wind of man, never fails to leave the district altogether.

That was a memorable stalk for me. Once again I experienced some of the feelings with which I had approached the first deer I ever shot. Indeed, I felt positively sick with excitement as I hobbled along my way, for all that that stag meant to us kept working in my mind. To kill it meant, at the best, that we should escape some days of vigorous hunger; at the worst, if the mist came on and lasted for any length of time, to lose it might possibly mean starvation. Meantime I struggled on, as fast as my ankle would allow, over the boulders which choked a part of the valley, and soon I was climbing out on the first of the ridges near the lake. Here I turned and began to run, as I thought, parallel to the stag, shortly to find my further progress stopped by a deep and rapid stream.

Being well aware that the Labrador caribou do not—in my experience, at least—face water as readily as do those of the Newfoundland species, I believed this stream would turn the stag, so I veered round towards the lake and climbed the second ridge. I peered over the summit, but could see nothing of the deer, and I had just made up my mind to follow the river to the lake when I caught sight of an object moving on the same side of the ridge as myself. The next moment there was the stag, about a hundred and fifty yards away, in full flight across the marsh! I made for the nearest boulder, and, steadying myself against it, fired twice. The first bullet went, as far as I was able to judge, over his back, as he splashed along with the water flying high around him; but the second—the glorious second—struck him right in the lungs, and within a few yards he fell dead. Although the antlers were still in velvet and were so soft as to be worthless, I have never felt more thankful for success than I did then as I mounted the ridge to signal my companions to come up. They joined me in an uncommonly short space of time, for, as the lie of the ground prevented them from seeing what had happened, they did not know whether they were destined to dine or starve. As they came up, being tired out, I happened to be sitting on a rock in an attitude of apparent dejection and Hardy jumped to the conclusion that I had failed.

I then learned the maddening experience to which these two famishing men had been subjected. No sooner had I left them, and got well out of hearing, though not out of sight, than the stag headed straight towards them down the mile-long marsh which lay between them and the lake, thus following a line which would inevitably, if we both continued in our respective directions, bring him to windward of me and destroy all chance of a shot. Meanwhile I pursued my way, quite unconscious of what was taking place. As Hardy and Porter had no rifle, and were unable, as the distance made it impossible, to give me warning, they could do nothing but sit still and watch, hoping that by good luck I might change my course. “But you would not do so; you ran on and on like a man possessed,” they told me. They finally had the chagrin of seeing me disappear from view behind one of the ridges, still running in my original direction, while the stag continued to advance more slowly towards them.

At last on a sudden they saw him stop, then rush forward, and almost at once he also disappeared behind the same ridge as myself. A second later they heard my two shots.

I was amused, and indeed not a little touched, to find how very careful Hardy was not to hurt my feelings, for as he came towards me he naturally concluded that the stag’s change of course at the psychological moment had prevented my getting a fair shot. When, however, I pointed over the hill to the dead stag lying in the marsh, the joy of my companions was by no means disappointing.

Our luck that evening was phenomenal, for as we were cutting up the stag the heavy showers that had been falling all the day ceased, and near at hand we found a growth of spruce four feet or so in height. Before long we were sitting round an aromatic little fire, while above us a great display of Northern Lights flickered and waved across the sky. Through their white luminosity the stars shone with a strange blue light; out on the water a great northern diver uttered its cry—a cry so wild and mournful that it seemed like the voice of the ultimate wilderness. That was a night to be remembered—a night which made up for much that had been disagreeable and difficult; and as there were no mosquitoes (after August 25th we were not again much bothered by these pests) we sat long over our little fire, and, it must be confessed, consumed pan after pan of meat, which Porter had fried—a culinary effort rendered none too easy by the fact that we had broken the handle from our frying-pan—and felt strength flow into our limbs.

I was awakened the next morning by Hardy, who whispered that a fox was stealing our meat. We were sleeping on the bare hill-side about 300 yards from the carcass of the caribou. The rising sun showed an Arctic fox upon the body of the stag, while two others were in the near vicinity. Of the meat they had devoured a surprising quantity. Shoulders down and haunches up, they must have pulled and tugged against each other. After trying in vain to drive them off, Hardy took the little ·22 and stalked them to within range, when he shot one of the thieves; yet the others almost immediately returned to their meal. As it seemed senseless to kill any more, and as they persistently returned, he and Porter carried the meat, or as much of it as was left, into camp, whereupon the foxes went back again to the carcass. They were very fearless, probably owing to their ravenous hunger. All over the tableland we found the predatory animals very abundant, though what they found to prey upon, apart from lemmings and young ptarmigan, remains a mystery.

After this we were quickly astir, and when Porter had sewn patches on his own and Hardy’s boots we left Lucky Camp, as we named it, carrying with us the greater part of the meat of the stag. Fine at first, the weather grew rapidly threatening, until early in the afternoon the showers condensed into one continuous downpour, driven before a heavy wind. The outlook seemed so hopeless that we decided to camp betimes, but could find no suitable boulder, among all the thousands that surrounded us, over which we could with any prospect of comfort draw our tent sheet. We therefore wandered on, and finally, soaking wet, we got up a most uncomfortable camp underneath a great rock, into the shelter of which we crawled among our wet packs.

A few minutes after we had, as one of us phrased it, “gone to ground,” on looking out under the flapping sheet, which every moment threatened to carry away in the gale, I saw a doe and her fawn shaking the rain from their coats on the other side of the valley. After staring across at our camp for a minute, they dashed away westward and were blotted out in the storm and mist. Whether or no we could have killed one of them, had it been needful, it is hard to say; but I think it very doubtful, as they were not nearer than two hundred and fifty yards, and it would have been a lucky shot indeed that could score a hit through the veiling rain at such a distance.

As these were the last deer we were destined to see, I will now write a few words about the game-supply of Labrador. Our experiences in this matter were, I think, essentially typical of the part of the country we wandered over. In outfitting for our march to the George we took a bare ration, trusting to supplement it by game and fish. As I have mentioned more than once in this book, the only other expedition that, to my knowledge, has entered Labrador on a similar theory was that of Leonidas Hubbard in 1903. The disastrous result of that expedition is well known. Some critics have rancorously attacked Hubbard’s plans, calling them rash and fool-hardy; but only those who have travelled in Labrador can realise how savage was the ill-fortune which dogged that expedition almost from start to finish. When calm weather was essential for their progress it blew remorselessly for days; at the time when they most needed food, then it became most scarce, even in its smaller forms; when a choice had to be made blindly, the most difficult way invariably appeared the best and was chosen. These things were pure misfortune.

[Illustration: Ration for Three.]

[Illustration: Our _Chef_.]

As we journeyed through Labrador, more and more did we come to admire Hubbard, Wallace, and Elson. The length of time for which the three held out, and the pluck they showed, entitles them to more than credit. It was a fine and a gallant record, and one without parallel in the history of Labrador exploration.

So convinced were we that Hubbard’s disaster was due in a great degree to ill-fortune, that we were willing to, and ultimately did, risk the success of our trip to back that opinion. Had we been obliged to depend entirely on the food which we packed in with us, we could not have reached the George, spent twelve days on its shores, and returned to Sandy Camp. But we were able to add the following items to our supply on the way. Upon the plateau and at the George we killed five deer, twelve _namaycush_ averaging three pounds, fifty-nine trout, eight ptarmigan; and had it not been for the meat, which rendered more shooting unnecessary, we could undoubtedly have made a larger bag both of deer and of small game.

Up on the tableland ptarmigan were few and far between; and in all our journey we saw no sign at all of porcupines, geese, or owls. It is impossible to deny that we were exceedingly fortunate in meeting with caribou. When packing towards and at the George, the sixty-nine deer that we saw—all travelling south-east—were, we concluded, the stragglers of the migration; when coming back, and while engaged in relay work, we covered a distance altogether of over a hundred and seventy miles, and saw only four.

Taking the above facts into consideration, it is obviously unsafe to trust to meeting the caribou. Such meeting is largely a matter of chance, but the traveller may fairly expect to supplement his provisions in summer with a certain amount of fish and of small game. Allowing a ration of half a pound of flour per day to each man (we had considerably less than that), and a quarter of a pound of bacon, or their equivalents, much could be done, provided always—and this is important—that the party are willing to face cheerfully the hardships that a short ration inevitably entails. For there is nothing that more impairs the work of most men, and brings out the worst in them, than a spell of continued privation; and the intending explorer will do well to pick his comrades very carefully before undertaking a protracted trip across the barrens. Along the rivers there is no excuse for stinting the food, as plenty can be carried in the canoes, and, in any case, it is wise to do as we did—that is, carry an over-generous supply of food to the farthest possible point on the route and there _cache_ it. This begets confidence, if nothing else, and, should unforeseen difficulties arise, makes a snatch at success practicable.

But to return to the narrative of our journey. After the deer had vanished the rain continued to increase, and the wind came whistling under the rock as if determined to tear away the tent-sheet. Owing to its violence we were compelled to close up either side of the tent by means of our usual device of weighting the edge with stones. Had we not done this it would certainly have ripped away and left us shelterless. Even as it was, we had a bitterly disagreeable night, the discomfort reaching its climax when, about midnight, the wind suddenly shifted to the north-west, bringing with it heavy sleet, which blew in under the canvas, so that we had a miniature snowstorm going on inside the tent.

Shortly after dawn we crawled out of the deep snow which had fallen inside our almost useless shelter, to find that Porter had risen before daylight and was cooking a meal of soup in the lee of a rock, round which the wind howled in violent gusts. After eating it we broke camp at once, and were soon on the march. Though the thermometer was not low, the weather was searchingly bleak and cold; the sleet seemed to whistle in solid masses before the wind. It was a day that offered no temptation to linger by the way, and we made excellent time over a very rough tract, our chief trouble being the mist, which ringed us in greyness, hampering us greatly, as it was impossible to recognise any landmark. At mid-day the cold had affected our fingers to such an extent that it was a long time before we could light a fire.

Towards evening the weather cleared, and, though the wind continued very strong, the air was beautifully cold and bracing. All the conditions were in striking contrast to those which obtained as we journeyed in. The whole face of the country was changed. Gone was the green of summer, and the great gale of the 27th had beaten down the grass, which now lay flat in yellow wisps and tussocks. That storm was the herald of winter.

How brief is the summer on the highlands of Labrador! The snow does not melt till July, then with a rush midsummer comes. Grasses and leaves grow almost visibly, the wild cotton soon flings out its little white pennons, millions of berries ripen on the ground, the loon cries, the ptarmigan calls, and you may even see a butterfly balancing in the warm wind. But then also awakens the countless army of hunchbacks, lean and grey mosquitoes, piping blithely for blood.

So summer reigns. Then suddenly one day, in the middle of August, after the sun has sunk behind the barren crags through a balmy warmth of evening, one may wake up to find everything transfigured and the first snow of another season already falling. There may, and will be, fine days after that, but the face of the country is no longer young; winter has laid its mark upon it—a mark that only spring can efface.

We were now eager to finish our journey and to leave the tableland before more boisterous weather set in; and as such might be expected any day, we travelled long and fast. Indeed, we made stages which we should never have attempted on the way inland. We often marched, carrying our packs, for spells of sixty or seventy minutes, then five minutes’ rest, and on again. Nor was it necessary to delay for hunting or fishing, as we had with us sufficient of the stag meat to last us to the Valley of the Fraser. For the most part we met with wild and showery weather, wet days and cold, fine nights.

As we advanced, the character of the country altered, the hills were less high and more rounded in contour, the crop of stones not quite so abundant. Entirely without shelter the patches of maiden birch became more and more meagre. Here and there we cut across mighty deer roads, but, contrary to our summer experience, saw scarcely a fresh track upon them; all the caribou seemed to have travelled away to the south-east, and we marched on over a region utterly destitute of game. To describe in detail our crossing of this tract would be tedious, and it is sufficient to say that, thanks to the sustaining stag meat, we picked up our _caches_ of food in good order, and finally from the ridges near Canoe Camp sighted the stupendous cliffs of the Fraser Valley. On the next day, the 4th of September, we made our way down Bear Ravine. The hill-sides were covered with berries and we were naturally expectant of seeing bears, but to our surprise these animals, which had been so numerous, seemed all to have moved away, and one set of fresh tracks was all that we could find.

The climb down the Ravine tried my ankle severely, and it was very black and swollen when, with much relief, I at last put down my pack at the higher of our two _caches_.

We were agreeably surprised to find that the bears had not raided our provisions. Even a bag of sugar which we had lashed in a tree remained untouched, and at first this seemed the more remarkable as many signs told us that a big brute had thoroughly explored the site of our old camp. But the explanation was not far to seek. In making our _cache_ a tin of our famous fly-dope of Stockholm tar and oil had been overlooked and left lying at the foot of the tree. This the bear had found and bitten through. Apparently the dainty morsel had not pleased his taste, and judging of our commissariat by that sample he had decamped without making any further investigations. The tar and oil had, of course, run out, but this was not now of much consequence, as although there were still a good many mosquitoes and black-flies about, their activities troubled our hardened skins but little, especially as they disappeared with the cold gloom which filled the valley when the sun sank behind the cliffs.

On September the 5th Hardy and Porter once more, and for the last time, climbed up Bear Ravine to _cache_ the canoe upon the uplands and to bring down the last of our impedimenta. The state of my ankle made it impossible for me to accompany them, so I spent the day in camp cooking, and although I was very sparing in what I ate, the little I did take caused me a good deal of pain. I think we were more starved than we realised, and when I stripped to bathe in the Fraser, my anatomy seemed unusually distinct. It was not that we had ever actually gone without food, but we had spread out a little over so long that the cumulative effect had certainly turned a heavy into a middleweight. Still, we never really suffered hardship (except from the mosquitoes) though our hunger was often disagreeably apparent, especially in the cold small hours.

The desire to eat and eat on that day while I sat over the fire baking large brown buns full of sultanas grew greater and greater, so much so that at last I had to give up the culinary effort and hobble off on a squirrel hunt, which saved me from myself.

It was latish when Hardy and Porter returned. They had seen neither game nor sign of anything alive. The canoe they had _cached_ against the assaults of the coming winter, perhaps against those of many winters, under the lee of a ridge. As we sat beside the great fire that we built that night in the Fraser Valley, we wondered whose would be the hand that would launch our canoe in some future spring. The journey down Bear Ravine with packs was, in its way, a more dangerous experience than the journey up; the leaping from rock to rock giving less chance of testing the stability of one’s foothold, and more than once Hardy barely escaped accident.

The following day was devoted to rest, boot-patching, and dismantling the _cache_ of the first canoe. All was in good order, and as the river had fallen some feet Porter succeeded in fishing Hardy’s rifle from the river bottom to which it had sunk over a month before. The rifle was unhurt, and Hardy shortly after celebrated its recovery by decapitating a Canada-grouse and a willow-grouse lower down the valley.

It took us two days to run down the Fraser, Porter and I working the canoe, and Hardy walking with his rifle, full of hope that he would kill a bear. Not one, however, did he see. On the second day, Porter and I found a fine sea-trout which had been killed in one of the falls, and on this providential fish we lunched, reaching the “skiff” and the shores of the long Fraser Lake an hour before sunset on the 8th. Here we set our camp, and an examination of the sandy bed of the river showed that the sea trout were running up in great numbers. An effort to shoot one of these (Hardy had the rod) failed, but when my companion put in an appearance we had great sport. No fish was above three pounds, but they were game and fought well.

On the 9th of September the wind was too high to start early, but as it fell towards afternoon we got aboard and sailed far on into the night, when we landed and slept beneath a bush. In the morning a sudden squall nearly drove the skiff upon the rocks, but this proved to be the last of our adventures, and at about 4 o’clock we rounded the point and saw the settlement of Nain.

The moment our boat was sighted from the wharf it was greeted with the cries from the station, and when we went ashore the news soon spread among the Eskimo that we had crossed to the George River. Almost the whole population gathered on the wharf to stare at us and our belongings. The Eskimo have, perhaps, a primitive, but certainly an undoubted sense of humour, for our appearance, freakishly bearded and travel-stained, with our hair as long as their own, caused them to roar with laughter. But among the laughter several with whom we were acquainted made very nice speeches of congratulation and welcome.

“_Aksunai! Kuviasukpogut uttileravit kanoenau!_” they said, which being translated means: “May you be strong! We are glad you are back amongst us, having successfully accomplished your desire.”