any means.

While the wind was driving him back, George caught sight of the branch
of the Beaver that flows almost due south directly into Grand Lake,
forming the island's western shore. Standing on this shore, he made a
shrewd guess. "I'll bet," he said, "my dream was right, and here we
have the same river we were on when we said good-bye to the canoe."
What interested him the most, however, was a row boat he espied a
little south of the island on the opposite shore. Apparently it had
been abandoned. "If can reach that boat," said George, "and it'll
float and I don't find Blake or any grab at his tilt, I'll put right
off for the post, and send help from there to them fellus up there."

There was no doubt about it, he would have to take chances with another
raft. Although his rags were beginning to freeze to his body, he did
not stop to build a fire, neither did he wait to eat anything. At
first it seemed hopeless to try to launch a raft; for the bank on the
western side of the island was very steep. Farther north, however, ice
had formed in the river for some distance from the shore, and to this
ice George dragged fallen trees and bound them as he had done before.
It was the labour of hours, the trees having to be dragged for
considerable distances. Once more afloat, George found no difficulty in
touching bottom with his pole, and in the gathering dusk he reached the
other shore.

Supposing that he was still many miles from a place where there was any
possibility of finding a human being, he decided to bivouac for the
night; but first he must examine the rowboat he had sighted from the
island. This made necessary the fording of a small stream. Hardly had
he emerged from the water, when, from among the spruce trees farther
back from the shore, there came a sound that brought him to a sudden
standstill and set his heart to thumping wildly against his ribs. It
was a most extraordinary sound to hear when one supposed one was alone
in a wilderness, and when all had been solemnly still save for the
dashing of waves upon a shore. On the night air there came floating to
George the cry of a little child.

"When I heard that youngster scream," said George, in telling me about
the incident, "I knew folks was there, and I dropped my bag, and I tore
my piece of blanket from my shoulders, and I runned and I runned."

In the course of the summer Donald Blake had built himself a log house
on the spot to which George was