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Only once in the first three weeks did they seek human company. This was at a small Indian camp where Jolly Roger bartered for caribou meat and moccasins for Peter's feet. Twice between there and God's Lake they stopped at trappers' cabins. It was early in March when they struck the Lost Lake country, three hundred miles from Cragg's Ridge.
Of course they would require all the day for the intended hunt of the caribou, as they might have to follow the track of the herd for many miles before coming up with the animals. Lucien was to remain by the camp, as it would never do to leave the animals they had already killed without some guard.
The Turtle was Glooskap's uncle; he married a daughter of the Golden Eagle and Caribou. Of all these things there are many and long traditions. Our people tell them in the winter by the fire: the old people know them; the young forget them and the wisdom which is in them. When the Turtle married, the Master bade him make a feast, and wished that the banquet should be a mighty one.
Caribou abound in these woods, but we saw only their tracks; and of bears, which are said to be plentiful, we saw no signs. Saturday morning we packed up our traps and started on our return, and found that the other side of the spruce-trees and the vista of the lonely road going south were about the same as coming north.
Strange to say, not a fish of any description had been seen for several days and not one could be induced to rise to fly or bait, and our net was always empty now. Game, too, was scarce. There were no fresh caribou tracks this side of the Nascaupee River, and but one duck and one spruce partridge had been killed. The last bit of our venison was eaten the day before.
No rapids intercepted our progress, and in an hour we had paddled three miles, when, at a place where the river widened, a big woodland stag caribou suddenly splashed into the water from the northern shore, two hundred yards ahead. I seized my rifle, and, without waiting for the canoe to stop, fired. The bullet went high. The caribou raised his head and looked at us inquisitively.
I did not know when, or how, yet did I know that I had surely died. "And Okiakuta, my mother, laid beside me my squirrel-skin parka. Also she laid beside me my parka of caribou hide, and my rain coat of seal gut, and my wet-weather muclucs, that my soul should be warm and dry on its long journey.
For the first time Joanne saw white, moving dots far up on a mountain-side, which MacDonald told her were goats. In the afternoon they saw mountain sheep feeding on a slide half a mile away, and for ten breathless minutes Joanne watched them through the telescope. Twice caribou sped over the opens ahead of them.
Peter M'Kenzie, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in the east, who was a fellow-traveller on my return journey, told me that many years ago while in charge of Fort Chimo he had seen the caribou passing steadily for three days just as I saw them on this 8th of August, not in thousands, but hundreds of thousands.
A dozen times he leaped in, and swam out into the stream. But Gray Wolf would come no farther than she could wade. They could hear the distant murmuring roar of the fire now. Ahead of it came the wild things. Moose, caribou and deer plunged into the water of the streams and swam to the safety of the opposite side.
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