ll said it was at
the end of the lake." And we said, "Yes, it is at the end of the lake;
they all said so," and went on, for that was before we knew--Hubbard
never knew. A perceptible current, a questioning word, the turn of a
paddle would have set us right. No current was noticed, no word was
spoken, and the paddle sent us straight toward those blue hills yonder,
where Suffering and Starvation and Death were hidden and waiting for
us. How little we expected to meet these grim strangers then. That
July day came back to me as if it had been but the day before. I
believe I never missed Hubbard so much as at that moment. I never felt
his loss so keenly as then. An almost irresistible impulse seized me
to go on into our old trail and hurry to the camp where we had left him
that stormy October day and find if he were not after all still there
and waiting for me to come back to him.

Reluctantly I thrust the impulse aside. Armed with the experience
gained upon the former expedition, and information gleaned from the
Indians, I turned into the northern trail, through the valley of the
Nascaupee, and began a journey that carried me eight hundred miles to
the storm-swept shores of Ungava Bay, and two thousand miles with dog
sledge over endless reaches of ice and snow.

While I struggled northward with new companions, Hubbard was always
with me to inspire and urge me on. Often and often at night as I sat,
disheartened and alone, by the camp-fire while the rain beat down and
the wind soughed drearily through the firtops, he would come and sit by
me as of old, and as of old I would hear his gentle voice and his words
of encouragement. Then I would go to my blankets with new courage,
resolved to fight the battle to the end.

One day our camp was pitched upon the shores of Lake Michikamau, and as
I looked for the first time upon the waters of the lake which Hubbard
had so longed to reach, I lived over again that day when he returned
from his climb to the summit of the great grey mountain which now bears
his name, with the joyful news that there just behind the ridge lay
Michikamau; then the weary wind-bound days that followed and the race
down the trail with all its horrors; our kiss and embrace; and my final
glimpse of the little white tent in which he lay.

And so with the remembrance of his example as an inspiration the work
was finished by me, the survivor, but to Hubbard and to his memory
belong the credit and the h