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os were numerous and fiercely persistent; and before turning in, the tent was sealed as hermetically as possible, and there ensued a general and complete killing of the insects that remained inside. In the forenoon of the day following, July 17, we felt ready to start. Even if our boat could have held all our freight, which weighed perhaps a ton, it was not wise to carry it, on account of the extreme shallowness of the stream, it being then, according to the "sour doughs," unprecedentedly low, due to the unusual lack of rain. So half of the freight was intrusted to John Dejus, a French Canadian, who, with his partner, was "going up to Council anyhow," and who agreed to freight our belongings at what was a very reasonable figure, considering the toil which it entailed. A certain amount of unpacking and rearranging had to be done in order to have readily at hand cooking-utensils and food and all the comfort that could be manufactured for the trip up the rivers. The tow-line was eighty or a hundred feet long, with small pieces of rope branching out near the end to throw over the shoulder and pull from, the object being to work from the shore and keep the boat well out in the stream, in the deeper water. Three of us pulled, and one sat in the stern and steered with an oar. As a matter of fact, the fellow who had the latter occupation had the hardest time of it; and, as we progressed, there was greater enthusiasm for the end of the line than for the "steering" position, which meant a continual jumping out into the stream and shoving the boat off from the shore, or backing it off a riffle and pulling and guiding its nose out against the swift, adverse current into water perhaps an inch deeper, which saved the situation. Hip rubber boots were essential. Undoubtedly, it was hard, exhausting work. We met others with boats less suited to the task than ours, apparently hopelessly stuck, pulling, hauling, shoving, and swearing. It was frequently necessary for some unfortunates to unload their boats, get them over a riffle, and then reload. Others would "cache" part of their freight (deposit it by the way), and struggle onward, to return later for the remainder. At first we got along very well pulling from the shore, though this meant not infrequently falling over one another when the shore developed into a bank with uneven ground, or delays and complications arose from the protruding brush. However, as the stream was very low, mos
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