to me with a satisfied smile. Instead of taking it I only laughed
at him, when he discovered he had put the pistol-holster and knife-
sheath on wrong side first. There was no help for it; it had to
come off again, for the sheaths would not slip over either buckle
or pouch. I comforted him with the assurance that it was good he
should have something to do to keep him out of mischief. When the
mistake had been remedied he showed me how to make a rabbit-snare.
Then the rain drove me to my tent again, and I had supper there
while the men made bannocks. It was horrid to eat in the tent
alone.

The barometer was now rising steadily, and I went to sleep with
high hopes of better weather in the morning. When I awoke the sun
was shining on the hills across the river. How welcome the sight
was! Everything was still wet though, and we did not break camp
till after dinner. I did some washing and a little mending. The
mice had eaten a hole in a small waterproof bag in which I carried
my dishes, dish-towel, and bannock, and I mended it with some tent
stuff. An electrician's tape scheme, which I had invented for
mending a big rent in my rubber shirt, did not work, and so I
mended that too with tent stuff. How I did hate these times of
inactivity.

It was one o'clock when we started forward again, and all afternoon
the portaging was exceedingly rough, making it slow, hard work
getting the big pile of stuff forward. To add to the difficulties,
a very boisterous little river had to be bridged, and when evening
came we had gone forward only a short distance. We had come to a
rather open space, and here the men proposed making camp. Great
smooth-worn boulders lay strewn about as if flung at random from