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We gave Dick twenty, I took seventy-six, and Billy shouldered the rest. The carrying we did with the universal tump-line. This is usually described as a strap passed about a pack and across the forehead of the bearer. The description is incorrect. It passes across the top of the head.
He liked the actual physical labour, the walking, the paddling, the tump-line, the camp-making, the new country, the companionship of the wild life, the wilderness as a whole rather than in any one of its single aspects as Fish Pond, Game Preserve, Picture Gallery. In this he showed the true spirit of the voyageur.
This is largely due to the tump-line, which is laid over the head, while persons unused to it must have shoulder-straps in addition, which are not as good, because the "breastbone," so called, is not strong enough. We were getting day by day farther into "the beyond." There were no traces here of the hand of man. Only Jimmie knew the way it was his trapping-ground.
The man was very much weather-beaten; his tweeds were torn; he carried a rifle in his right hand. And his left was bound in bloody rags. But what instantly arrested McKay's attention was the pack strapped to his back and supported by a "tump-line." Never before had McKay seen such a pack carried in such a manner excepting only in American forests. The man stood facing the sun.
Those of the advance-party were now some ten days ahead of their companions in the rear. Mrs MacNaughton, whose husband was with the rear party, of which we shall hear more anon, relates the story of a young fellow so ravenous that he fried the deer-thong he had bought for a tump-line back at one of the company's forts.
As he followed Sam out on the curving cheek of the rock his foot slid, he lost his equilibrium, was on the edge of falling, overbalanced by the top-heavy pack he was carrying. Luckily Sam himself was portaging the canoe. Dick, with marvellous quickness, ducked loose from the tump-line. The pack bounded down the slant, fell with a splash, and was whirled away.
"I could set him on th' best runways, 'n' Erne 'n' me could dog th' bush till our tongues hung out 'n' we could hardly open our mouths 'thout barkin'; could run deer past him till it must 'a looked if he'd had a loose look about him like a Gracefield habitaw weddin' pr'cession, 'n' thar he'd set with his eyes fast on th' end o' his gun, I guess, a-waitin' for a sign of a bite 'fore he'd jerk her up to try 'n' get somethin'. 'N' the queerest part was, he seemed to enjoy it just 's much 's if he'd brought down a three-hundred-pound buck to drag the wind out o' Erne 'n' me at th' end o' a tump-line.
Dick Herron resented the monotony, resented the deliberation necessary to so delicate a mission, resented the unvarying tug of his tump-line or the unchanging yield of the water to his paddle, resented the placidity of the older man, above all resented the meek and pathetic submissiveness of the girl. His narrow eyes concentrated their gaze ominously. He muttered to himself.
This load was supported and held together by a broad moose-hide band a tump-line strapped across his forehead, his upraised hands grasping the narrowing moose-hide stretched on either side of his lowered head, between ear and shoulder.
His face was white as he spoke. He seized a tump-line, swung the pack upon his head, and set off across the portage. "Come on, boys," he yelled. "We're going through to-night." "Oh, hold up, Knight!" said Duff. "What the hell's eating you? We'll grub first anyway." "No," said Knight.
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