and, striking out into the trail along
which they saw the Indians were hurrying, they bravely endeavoured to
keep those in sight who had started just before them. To their great
surprise they found this to be an utter impossibility. The swinging jog
trot of an Indian does not seem to be a very rapid pace, but the white
man unaccustomed to it finds out very quickly that it takes long
practice for him to equal it. At first the boys thought that it was
because they had loaded themselves too heavily, and so they quite
willingly took a rest on the way; dropping their blankets and guns, and
sitting down on a rock beside the trail, they watched with admiration
the Indians in single file speeding along with their heavy loads. Many
of these men can carry on each trip three pieces, that is a load of from
two hundred and forty to three hundred pounds.

As Ayetum, the Indian who had charge of the white boys' cooking
arrangements, was passing them as they sat there in the portage he said,
in broken English:

"White boys leave guns and blankets, Ayetum come for them soon."

This was quite agreeable to the tired lads, and so they started up
again, Frank saying as they did so:

"Now we will show them that we can keep up to them." Gallantly they
struck out, but to a white boy running over an Indian trail where rocks
and fallen trees and various other obstructions abound is a very
different thing from a smooth road in a civilised land. For a time they
did well, but when hurrying along on a narrow ledge of rock an unnoticed
creeping root tripped up and sent Sam flying over the side of a steep
place, where he went floundering down twenty or thirty feet among the
bracken and underbrush. Fortunately he was not much hurt, but he needed
the assistance of two Indians to get him up again.

Thus rapidly passed the days as the brigade hurried on. Not an hour was
wasted. It was necessary to move on as quickly as possible, as not
twenty-four hours would elapse ere the next brigade would be dispatched
from York Factory, and not only would it be a great disgrace to be
overtaken, but the rivalry and strife of the boats' crews in the
portages, in their efforts to see which could get their cargoes over
first, would be most intense; and sometimes there is bad blood and
quarrelling, especially if the brigades happen to be of rival tribes.

Hence it was ever the plan of the great company that employed them all
to keep them at least a day or