his request George and
I scouted for trails. Each of us carried a rifle and wore at his belt
a pistol and a cup in addition to the sheath knife we never were
without. In our pockets we placed a half-pound package of pea meal.
George started westward up the river, and I put for a high, barren bill
two miles to the north. As I climbed the hill I heard gulls on the
other side, which told me water lay in that direction, and when I
reached the top, there at my feet, like a silver setting in the dark
green forest, lay a beautiful little shoe-shaped lake. For miles and
miles beyond the ridge I was on, the country was flat and covered with
a thick spruce growth.

To the northeast of the lake at my feet I could see the glimmer of
other water among the trees, and I decided to go on and investigate.
In doing so, I managed to get myself lost. Descending the hill to the
lake, I made my way through the thick spruce growth in the swamp along
the shore. A splash in the water startled me, and soon I found the
fresh tracks of a caribou. As he had winded me, I knew it was useless
to try to follow him. Pressing my way on to the northeast, I came upon
another small lake and several small creeks. At midday I built a fire
and made a cup of pea meal porridge. While waiting for my meal to
cook, I read a letter that a friend had given me in New York, "to be
opened after one week's canoeing in Labrador." It was like a letter
just received from home.

In the afternoon the sun became obscured by gathering clouds, and in
the thick underbrush through which my course led me I could see
scarcely twenty yards ahead. I attempted to get my direction with the
compass, but the needle would not respond. Trusting, however, to my
ability to find my course without it, I made my way on past two more
lakes. A grouse fluttered up before me, and I brought it down with a
pistol shot. After tying it to my belt, I decided it was time to turn
back home, as we called our camp, and struck off by what I hoped would
be a short cut through the swamp. Then it was that I lost my bearings,
and at dusk, when I hoped to reach the first lake I had seen in the
morning, I found myself on the shore of a lake I had never seen before.

Too weary to cook the grouse, or even build a fire and make a cup of
porridge, I threw myself on a flat rock, pillowed my head on the trunk
of a fallen spruce tree, drew a handkerchief over my face to keep away
the clouds of mosquitoes,