p, a nephew of Sir William Vernon
Harcourt bringing up the rear, and all slithering, but hanging
to it with dogged perseverance. Nothing, indeed, can be imagined
more arduous than this tracking up a swift river, against constant
head winds in bad weather. Much of it is in the water, wading up
"snies," or tortuous shallow channels, plunging into numberless
creeks, clambering up slimy banks, creeping under or passing the
line over fallen trees, wading out in the stream to round long
spits of sand or boulders, floundering in gumbo slides, tripping,
crawling, plunging, and, finally, tottering to the camping-place
sweating like horses, and mud to the eyes--but never grumbling.
After a whole day of this slavish work, no sooner was the bath
taken, supper stowed, and pipes filled, than laughter began,
and jokes and merriment ran round the camp-fires as if such
things as mud and toil had never existed.

The old Indian, Peokus, heading the Police line, was a study.
His garb was a pair of pants toned down to the colour of the
grime they daily sank in, a shirt and corduroy vest to match,
a faded kerchief tied around his head, an Assomption sash, and
a begrimed body inside of all--a short, squarely built frame,
clad with rounded muscles--nothing angular about _him!_--but the
nerves within tireless as the stream he pulled against. On the
lead, in harness, his long arms swung like pendulums, his whole
body leant forward at an acute angle, the gait steady, and the
step solid as the tramp of a gorilla. Some coarse black hairs
clung here and there to his upper lip; his fine brown eyes were
embedded in wrinkles, and his swarthy features, though clumsy,
were kindly--a good-humoured face, which, at a cheerful word
or glance, lit up at once with the grotesque grin of an animated
gargoyle. This was the typical old-time tracker of the North; the
toiler who brought in the products of man's art in the East, and
took out Nature's returns--the Indian's output--ever since the
trade first penetrated these endless solitudes.

The forest scenery now became very striking; primeval masses of
poplar and birch foliage, which spread away and upward in smoothest
slopes, like vast lawns, studded with the sombre green of the pine
tops which towered above them. Here and there the bends of the
river crossed at such angles as to enclose a lake-like expanse
of water. The river also took a fine colouring from its tributaries,
a sort of greenish-yellow tinge, a