snow and
water-covered ice.

Mugford agreed to help us out with his four dogs as far as West Bay.
Arriving there, we found that only one team was procurable for the rest
of the trip to Cartwright, so John Williams continued on with us all
the way. Forty or fifty miles a day is about all that dogs can be
expected to accomplish with average going, and we spent two days
between Rigolet and Cartwright, reaching the Hudson's Bay Company Post
at Sandwich Bay on the evening of Wednesday, April 27th, to receive
kindly welcome from the agent, Mr. Swaffield. Again at Cartwright we
had some difficulty in getting dogs, and it was not until Friday
morning that we could push on. These delays were exasperating, for I
was bent on catching the steamer that Dr. Macpherson informed me in his
letter was due at Battle Harbour early in May.

Our journey resumed, it was a case of fighting dog owners all the way.
Seal Islands, about ninety miles farther down the coast, we reached on
Saturday night, April 30th. There we had the good fortune to be
entertained by a quaint character in the person of Skipper George
Morris, a native trader. He had been expecting us, and he greeted me
as if I had been his long-lost brother.

"Dear eyes!" he exclaimed, wringing my hand in his bluff, cordial way;
"Dear eyes! but I'se glad to see you--wonderful glad!"

The skipper's house was far above the average of those on the coast.
It had two floors with two rooms each, and his good wife kept
everything clean and bright. Soon after our arrival the skipper got
out for our edification two shotguns--one single, and the other
double-barrelled--each of which was fully six feet long from butt to
muzzle and had a bore of one and one-half inches.

"Th' Boers ha' been fightin' England," said he, "an' I got un [the gun]
t' fight, sir. Dear eyes! if th' Boers ha' come handy t' us, I thinks
I could ha' kept un off, sir. I knows I could wi' them guns. I'd sure
ha' shot through their schooners, sir, if un was big as th' mail boat
an' steamers like th' mail boat. I'd ha' shot through un, sir, an' th'
mail boat's a big un, sir, as you knows."

The next day was May Day. I knew that at home the birds and the
flowers had returned, and that in dear old New York gay parties of
children were probably marching to the parks. What a May Day it was on
The Labrador! The morning ushered in a heavy snow storm, with a
tremendous gale. Thinking of the steamer due at Battle