The sixteenth of September--the day we passed through this large
expansion--was Richards' birthday. When we bade good-by to the other
men it was agreed that both parties should celebrate the day, wherever
they might be, with the best dinner that could be provided from our
respective stores. The meal was to be served at exactly seven o'clock
in the evening, that we might feel on this one occasion that we were
all sitting down to eat together, and fancy ourselves reunited. In
the morning we opened the package that Richards gave us, and found in
it a piece of fat pork and a quart of flour, intended for a feast of
our favorite "darn goods." With self-sacrificing generosity he had
taken these from the scanty rations they had allowed themselves for
their return that we might have a pleasant surprise. With the now
plentiful game this made it possible to prepare what seemed to us a
very elaborate menu for the wild wastes of interior Labrador. First,
there was bouillon, made from beef capsules; then an entr'ee of fried
ptarmigan and duck giblets; a roast of savory black duck, with spinach
(the last of our desiccated vegetables); and for dessert French toast
_'a la Labrador_ (alias darn goods), followed by black coffee. When
it was finished we spent the evening by the camp fire, smoking and
talking of the three men retreating down our old trail, and trying to
calculate at which one of the camping places they were bivouacked.
Every night since our parting this had been our chief diversion, and I
must confess that with each day that took us farther away from them an
increased loneliness impressed itself upon us. Solemn and vast was
the great silence of the trackless wilderness as more and more we came
to realize our utter isolation from all the rest of the world and all
mankind.

The marsh and swamp land gradually gave way to hills, which increased
in size and ruggedness as we proceeded. We had found the river at its